Tennessee county history series : Montgomery County / by Ursula S. Beach ; Robert B. Jones, editor

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Tennessee County History Series

EDITORIAL BOARD

Frank B. Williams, Jr., Editor for East Tennessee
Robert B.Jones, Editor for Middle Tennessee
Charles W. Crawford, Editor for West Tennessee
J. Ralph Randolph, Coordinator

EDITORIAL STAFF

Anne B. Hurley
Ginnie S. Slagle

TENNESSEE COUNTY HISTORY SERIES

Montgomery County

by Ursula S. Beach

Robert B.Jones

Editor

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MEMPHIS STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Memphis,Tennessee

Copyright ®1988 by Memphis State University Press

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying and recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system without permission from the
publisher.

Maps prepared by MSU Cartographic Services Laboratory

Manufactured in the United States of America

Designed by Gary G. Gore

ISBN 0-87870-179-6

Acknowledgements

To those men of long ago whose exploits, experiences, and
thoughts were recorded, we owe a debt of gratitude. Without the
record of such events there would be no sources for research
into the past. Those of early days could not foresee the present;
they were faithful to a task, often self-imposed and without tan-
gible reward. To Andre Michaux and Captain James Adair, to
John Donelson and Eastin Morris, and to the men in North Car-
olina who kept the early land records, we express our thanks. To
the diligent public servants who filed the public records of state,
county, and city, we are obligated.

Especial gratitude is due Wooldridge and associates who com-
piled the historical and genealogical data for the Goodspeed
Publishing Company of Nashville. The ensuing History of Ten-
nessee with its sections of county histories has been a source of
much information although certain aspects are sometimes in er-
ror. This publication of 1886 is invaluable.

Thanks to W. P. Titus for the vast supply of local information
in Picturesque Clarksville, Past and Present, published in 1887 and
thereafter reprinted in 1973.

Had James Ross not revered his father and appreciated his
struggle and its rewards there would not be the first-hand ac-
counts of life in Montgomery and Stewart counties in the early
nineteenth century. The Life and Times of Elder Reuben Ross, first
published in 1882, was reprinted in 1977.

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the encouragement
and contribution of the Clarksville Kiwanis Club and the State
Historical Commission which led to the publication of Along the
Warioto: A History of Montgomery County, Tennessee in 1964. As au-
thor of Along the Warioto, I recognize that the six years spent in
research were justified, for the book was reprinted in 1965 and
again in 1978. That history was compiled in chronological order,
while the current History of Montgomery County is presented in a

different form as essays on specific and meaningful phases of
life in the area.

Finally, my expression of thanks to my husband, Oscar Beach,
for the freedom of time to read and to write. That cooperation
and consideration made possible the book which you now read.

To my readers, may you enjoy and profit by the time you
spend with this small volume in a series of county histories.

VI

This volume is dedicated to the memory of those persons of
the past who left in written form the records of events in time
and place so that we in later years might learn of our heritage.
Without their contribution this history could not have been com-
piled; each generation profits by the records of the past.

For what is history? When does it begin? When does it end?

There is no point at which a history ends, just as there is no
point on a line unless another line crosses it. Events are striking
only when one is made aware of some particular significance.
Each person who reads these lines is a part of history in the mak-
ing. As "no man is an island" so there is no end to a history of a
people, a town, a county.

Vll

N T

CHRISTIAN
COUNTY

STEWART
COUNTY

ROBERTSON
COUNTY

HOUSTON '
COUNTY

unningham ^ /' CHEATHAM
COUNTY

MONTGOMERY
COUNTY

LEGEND

® COUNTY SEAT
• Other Communities
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A*y Interstate Route
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AAA SERVICE

^&£t Major Streams

MSU Cartographic Se

SOURCE Tennessee Department ot Transportation

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ONTGOMERY County lies in the tier of Tennessee coun-
ties touching the Kentucky counties of Christian and Todd. Ten-
nessee counties upon which Montgomery borders are
Cheatham, Dickson, Robertson, and. Stewart. All have influ-
enced or been influenced by the development of one another.

The county is situated on the northern plateau of the High-
land Rim. The St. Louis limestone of the Mississippian geologic
period, in places 1 50 feet in depth, prevails with significant caves
and sinkholes. Sinkholes are cavities formed by the sinking of
running surface waters, followed by the caving of surrounding
topsoil as greater wear occurs along the edges of the fissures.
Springs of mineral water rise to the surface in various areas.
These may be of red, black, or white sulphur, of alum, or of iron
or chalybeate waters. Iron ore from the Lithostrotion Cana-
dense coral formation is found in areas north and southwest of
the Cumberland River. This ore is obtained from excavations
made either in the tops or sides of plateau ridges. These areas,
called centers or banks, contain extensive and valuable deposits,
occurring in irregular lumps or in hollow concretions scattered
through the matrix. It is the only productive mineral which af-
fected the industrial growth of the area.

The county, its elevation ranging from 325 to 575 feet above

2 Tennessee County History Series

sea level and averaging 500 feet, is drained throughout its 540
square miles by the Cumberland River and its tributaries. The
most significant tributary, the Red River, joins the Cumberland
at Clarksville. The Red River originates in Sumner County, Ten-
nessee, flowing northward with its several forks draining the
Kentucky counties of Christian, Logan, Simpson, Todd, and
Trigg. The waters of Montgomery, Robertson, and Stewart
counties in Tennessee join to form a drainage basin of 1456
square miles, second only to the Caney Fork basin of 2586 square
miles in input into the Cumberland River.

Prehistoric Cultures

Its glistening waters reflecting sunset fire, the Warioto (which
the white man would later name the Cumberland) swirled
around barren limestone bluffs and wound lazily through sere
grassy flats. Buffalo, heavy and dark, lumbered in the cane-
brakes along the north bank. Overhead, birds in flight sought
roosting places for the night swinging south of the river to dis-
solve amid the darkening shadows of the oak, beech, walnut, and
hickory trees native to the silicious soil. To the north, there were
few trees on the Barrens, for hunters had burned over the land
with its natural growth of scrub hickory, hazel, and black gum,
revealing a soil rich for grasses and grain.

Winter was approaching and with it would come the hunters
and trappers. Small fur-bearing animals moved along the tri-
butaries of the Warioto where great cliffs of limestone recorded
the past, imprisoned in fossils from the Lower Carboniferous
Period.

Long before the dawn of written history, human beings in-
habited the lands along the rivers and nearby cliffs. In successive
order the Paleo-Indian, the Archaic, the Woodland, and the Mis-
sissippian Indians have left evidence of their occupancy in this
area. In caves and mounds, in woodland hills and lands along
the streams, remnants of their way of life remain for the dis-
cerning to discover and to interpret. A recent excavation, 16 feet
deep at the mouth of Dunbar's Cave, reached the water level of

MONTGOMERY 3

the present outflowing stream. An archaeological survey of
artifacts revealed all four orders of the early cultures, with the
Paleo at the lowest excavated level.

Most of the earliest tools were made of flint. Some were
knives with thin, flat, sharp blades. Scrapers, used in the prepa-
ration of hides, were heavier blades with a steep cutting edge
along the side and end. Smaller sharp flakes were used for pierc-
ing skins, which were laced together for clothing or other equip-
ment. Flint drills were used for boring holes in wood or bone.
The fluted spearpoints of Ice Age man have been found in sev-
eral counties, including Montgomery, indicating that nomadic
hunters of that period hunted animals grazing in the grassland
of the Highland Rim. As the Old Stone Age gave way to the Me-
solithic or Middle Stone Age, the cultures of the past were trans-
mitted and transmuted. Less wandering after game, shorter
distances to streams bearing fish, and a proximity to plants bear-
ing fruits and seeds gave impetus to a greater concentration of
dwellings. In the Tennessee area the Archaic era began at least
eight thousand years ago and endured for six thousand years or
more.

Much of our knowledge of the Archaic Indians has come
from studying their cave dwellings and the trash heaps that con-
tain clues to their daily lives. Bone fishhooks, household tools
such as the mortar and pestle, bone needles, awls, and flint
knives have been found. Mussel shells indicate a food source
from a nearby river.

Neolithic, or New Stone Age, man altered the nomadic pat-
tern. The domestication of plants and animals resulted in more
permanent settlements that were well adapted to developing arts
and crafts. The Woodland Indians of Middle Tennessee lived in
one-family circular huts made of saplings covered with bark or
woven mats. Cooking was usually done over open fires although
each family unit had an underground oven. Pottery making and
weaving techniques became more advanced, as did tool making.
Shallow graves have yielded both clothing and ornaments.

The next era was that of the burial mound-builders, during
which the Woodland Indians were drawn into association with

4 Tennessee County History Series

cultures from other areas. A network of trails crisscrossing the
forest served as channels for the spread of innovations in farm-
ing, fashions, mound-building, and rituals. Along these trails
moved cultural advances as needs arose and as goods were ob-
tained from faraway sources. The simple dome-shaped mounds
found in this area bear evidence of Ohio Valley Indian influence.

A later period, identified as the age of temple mounds, began
a thousand years before Columbus first used the term "Indians."
This age continued into recorded history. The Mississippian In-
dian culture is characterized by larger towns, intensive agricul-
ture, a more complex government, and greater development of
religious rites and technical skills. The stone-lined graves of
Montgomery County are an interesting detail. Laying the body
full length, flat on the back, is characteristic of Yuchi burial meth-
ods. Most graves are devoid of pottery, although one piece may
be found outside the grave, usually at the foot.

A significant feature of this period was the development of
a political and spiritual alliance by four Muskhogean-speaking
tribes. Within this confederacy were Creeks, Yuchi, Choctaws,
and Chickasaws. The strength of this confederacy lay in its abil-
ity to absorb aspects of the different cultures and integrate the
diverse elements. The eventual disintegration of this confed-
eration began when the Cherokees joined forces with the Eng-
lish colonists.

No tribal names are directly associated with the Highland
Rim inhabitants, as the Montgomery County area was a hunting
ground for all. There was little cause to begrudge others the use
of hunting lands as hunting was for subsistence only and game
was plentiful. The buffalo flourished on the Highland Rim and
was prized by the Indians as a source of food and leather. The
hide was used to make bedding and the hair was spun into gar-
ters, girdles, sashes, and other ornaments. Bears abounded in
the forests. The flesh was tasty and nourishing and the fat was
used for frying fish and other foods. Later the fur was treasured
for trade with Europeans. Other native animals included deer,
beaver, otter, mink, fox, raccoon, and opossum.

Only after the coming of the white traders, when hunting

MONTGOMERY 5

became a source of profit, did the hunting grounds become a
subject of contention with intertribal warfare developing. Now
the Indians traded among themselves deer skins and slaves for
weapons, cutting tools, clothing, creature comforts, and staple
goods.

The Cherokee were another important influence in the area.
Unlike the four tribes of the Muskhogean-speaking confederacy,
the Cherokee were of Iroquoian stock and never joined the con-
federacy. Cherokee society was based on brotherhood and com-
munal living, and other elements of their culture, such as
agriculture and language, were well advanced when the Euro-
peans arrived in their midst. The name Tennessee is derived
from the Cherokee word tanasi, meaning town.

A gradual eviction of the Cherokee began in the early eight-
eenth century. After the French and Indian Wars ended with the
Treaty of Paris in 1763, land-hungry settlers moved into Chero-
kee lands in the North Carolina mountains. Further losses were
suffered by the Cherokee during the Revolution, when the In-
dians allied themselves with the British. Thereafter Cherokee
youth, in defiance of their elders, turned toward the Cumber-
land where burning, pillaging, and scalping became the order
of the day. In Montgomery County there were many losses at
the hands of Indian raiding parties, for the Treaty of 1794 did
not end the border warfare. Distrust and suspicion were now
present and would lead to broken treaties, contested claims,
theft, fire, and slaughter.

The history and imprint of nature and man are beneath our
feet; we tread blindly upon them each day.

The White Man in Conflict

Spain was the first claimant of the soil that later was to bear
the name Tennessee. France and England coveted the continent,
yet had to await the weakening of Spanish power brought about
by the Reformation and the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
These events opened the Atlantic to the ships of the rival nations
in their quest to plant colonies in America.

6 Tennessee County History Series

England claimed lands between the 33rd and 40th parallels
extending from the Atlantic westward. This claim overlapped
that of Spain, now so weakened that little protest was offered.
France became a more formidable foe with her exploration of
the Mississippi valley in 1673. In this way the French approached
Tennessee from the west along the waterways of the Mississippi
and the Cumberland.

Hunters and trappers entered the region. The French fur
trader, Charles Charleville from Kaskaskia, came into the Cum-
berland area in 1714. Near the site of an earlier Shawnee village
he established a trading post at French Lick, the present site
of Nashville. Skins and furs commanded gold and silver in the
European market while cured meats could be exchanged for
European goods at towns downriver, such as Natchez and
New Orleans.

The eighteenth century war between the countries of France
and England inevitably spread to America, where the bounda-
ries of the possessions were changed by the British victory in the
French and Indian War (1754-1763). In an attempt to pacify the
Indians and to prevent further uprisings, King George III of
England issued a proclamation on October 17, 1763, which pro-
hibited the granting of lands and the making of settlements west
of the headwaters of streams flowing into the Atlantic. Further
government exploration, however, took place when an armed
row-galley HMS Gage surveyed the area in 1769. Thomas
Hutchins, a British army engineer from Fort de Chartres, pre-
pared the first map. Downstream from the junction of the Red
River and the Cumberland a future landmark was designated
Red Paint Hill. It is probable that this was later used as a river-
boat landmark, Red Rock, a few miles below Linwood Landing.

The white mans' desire for the prohibited areas was not qui-
eted and the Kings proclamation was soon ignored. Settlers
moved down the mountain valleys of Virginia through which the
headwaters of the Tennessee River's tributaries tumbled. Look-
ing ever westward some journeyed through the Cumberland
Gap following the Boone Trail to the grasslands of Kentucky
County, Virginia. Others turned southward into the valleys of

MONTGOMERY 7

North Carolina and settled in its western mountains. Hunters
on long journeys into the Cumberland country noted lands suit-
able for settlement. Some families drifted from the Boone Trail
and settled in the upper Red River region.

Knowledge of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers led to
the eventful and historic journey of John Donelson with his flo-
tilla of flatboats and other craft in 1779. An excerpt from Do-
nelson s journal notes that on April 12,1 780, Moses Renfroe and
company took leave of the main party and ascended the Red
River intending to make a settlement upstream at a previously
chosen location. The settlement came to a tragic conclusion
when Indians attacked in early summer and lives were lost.
Members of the party who had escaped later returned for their
possessions which had been abandoned in their flight. They too
were attacked and the site of the disaster is now designated as
Battle Creek in Robertson County.

With little protection from the Indians, incited now by the
Spanish, all isolated settlements were in constant jeopardy of
open attack or ambush. Rifle, tomahawk, and fire took a heavy
toll, while the theft of horses, rifles, and other property was com-
monplace. Settlers were kidnapped for the purpose of coersion
or ransom, as humans were considered property to be
redeemed.

Along the Cumberland and Red rivers isolated settlements
continued to appear. The North Carolina Assembly, which at the
time held claim to the area that is now Middle Tennessee, in May
of 1780 granted a land bounty to officers and soldiers of the
Continental Line. Acreage was to be in relation to a soldier's re-
spective grade, with a private entitled to 640 acres. The land was
granted to all those in service at the time or those who would be
in service until the end of the war. Land also went to those
wounded who were no longer fit for military service or to the
heirs of those who died in the defense of the nation.

This action was further extended in 1 782 when the Assembly
of North Carolina passed an act allowing settlers on the Cum-
berland the right of preemption. Six hundred and forty acres
went to each family or head of family and to each man aged 2 1

8 Tennessee County History Series

or more who settled on such lands prior to June 1, 1780. Sub-
sequent action gave land grants to commissioners, chain-bear-
ers, cooks, and others involved in laying off lines and claims.

Central points to which settlers might flee for protection
were designated as stations. There were three principal stations
in the Cumberland-Red River area. Princes Station was estab-
lished in 1782 about 100 yards from the Cave Springs, near the
junction of Sulphur Fork and the Red River. Nevill's Station, a
fort on the Red River between Princes Station and Clarksville,
was founded around 1784. Clarksville, named in honor of Gen-
eral George Rogers Clark, Indian fighter and Revolutionary War
leader who contributed much to the westward movement into
the Ohio Valley, was the only station to become a city.

In January of 1784 John Montgomery and Martin Arm-
strong "entered" a body of land. They surveyed it that fall and
laid off town lots. They built a fort or blockhouse at a spring near
the Cumberland River and proceeded to sell lots. Of the 640
acres obtained by these men, 200 were set aside for the town.
On December 29, 1785, the North Carolina Assembly estab-
lished Clarksville as a town with a town common. Governed by
commissioners appointed by the Assembly the town grew and
shortly thereafter an additional 640 acres were acquired and
sold as town and out lots.

Lots in the newly developed town each sold for ten pounds
North Carolina currency. Among the first purchased was lot 13,
sold to James Adams, a contractor who built the first courthouse
on an adjoining lot. George Briscoe bought lots 65 and 67 on
the northeast corner of Franklin and Spring streets, William
Briscoe bought lot 53 on Main Street near Water, and James
Davis purchased the adjoining corner lot. John Boyd owned lot
71 at the corner of Franklin and Water streets, but was killed by
Indians before he could build a house. Phebe McClure pur-
chased lot 1 6 on the north side of Main Street while Martha Cur-
tis owned lot 5 1 on the opposite side of the street.

The long distance and inconvenience of travel to Nashbor-
ough led in 1786 to the formation of Sumner County, to the east
of present-day Montgomery County. Two years later, in 1788,

MONTGOMERY 9

the northern section of Davidson County broke away to form
Tennessee County with Clarksville as its county seat. The area
remained a part of North Carolina until 1 790 when it was ceded
to the federal government becoming a part of the territory south
of the Ohio River, commonly known as the Southwest Territory.
So it remained until statehood was granted Tennessee in 1796.
And so the little town survived and prospered, attracting new
settlers despite frequent attacks by Indians. Pioneers and fron-
tiersmen alike attempted to recreate and perpetuate the culture
of their former homes in their new environment.

Danger in the Cumberlands

The Cumberland settlements were not continuous; rather
each one was necessarily self-sustaining. Two hundred miles
from their former homes, with no means of trade and no needed
commodities to exchange with their former associates, the set-
tlers sought new markets for their furs, skins, smoked meats,
and surplus produce in the Illinois country via the northward
flowing rivers. They continued to defend themselves against In-
dian attack, and difficulties with the Spanish persisted. The set-
tlers suffered from the continuing rivalry over the use of the
Mississippi River. Spanish agents secretly incited the Cherokee,
Chickamaugas, Creek, and Choctaws to guerrilla warfare,
promising bounties for settlers' scalps, and use of the waterways
was hazardous.

Indian attacks continued month after month in the fields,
near mills, along trails, and at log cabins. The Indians ap-
proached silently, plunging from ambush, shrieking and
screaming as they fired their guns, resorting to the tomahawk
and scalping knife as they attacked.

Although peace did not materialize until long after the
Treaty of Holston was signed in 1 79 1 between Governor William
Blount of the Southwest Territory and Cherokee chiefs, Revo-
lutionary War veterans continued to move their families into the
Cumberlands. Among these was Valentine Sevier, one of five
brothers who had fought the British in the battle of Kings Moun-

10 Tennessee County History Series

tain, South Carolina, in 1780. After buying 640 acres north of
the confluence of the Cumberland and Red rivers, Sevier estab-
lished a station as a home for himself, his wife, Naomi, and
twelve of their children. He had left his eldest son John in the
eastern mountains with relatives, including a brother, John Sev-
ier, who later became the first governor of the state of Tennessee
in 1796.

Life at the station proved hard for the Sevier family. Thomas
Grantham, the husband of Sevier's daughter Ann, was killed
early one morning while hunting near the station. This death in
October of 1791 was followed by the loss of three Sevier sons
the following January. The 16-year-old twins, Robert and Wil-
liam, were slain by Indians near the mouth of Blooming Grove
Creek in the late afternoon of January 15, 1792. Their elder
brother, Valentine Sevier IV, was killed the following morning
in the same vicinity. The brothers had gone down the Cumber-
land to deliver food to travelers ascending the stream. On their
return they were lured to shore and killed. Others were also
wounded in the attack.

All along the Cumberland wandering groups of Indians at-
tacked at will. Numerous attacks also continued along the Red
River as isolated settlements fell victim to the Indians. Succeed-
ing months of 1793 and 1794 brought further activity along the
frontier with fear and death stalking home and field. Thirty set-
tlers were killed or injured during the last 60 days of 1794.

One mass attack was at Sevier's Station near noon on Novem-
ber 1 1th. Despite the usual uncertainty and danger the daily du-
ties had to be performed. A young man at the station borrowed
Sevier's rifle and with most of the ammunition departed for the
day in search of deer or other game. Seventeen-year-old James
Sevier and a black servant were gathering corn in a field near
the river while close by John King, present husband of the wid-
owed Ann Sevier Grantham, was busy stacking corn. Other
members of the station remained at the forted area, including
Charles Snider, husband of Elizabeth Sevier Snider. He attended
the fires in the blacksmith shop assisted by Thomas Lindsay, a

MONTGOMERY 11

15-year-old apprentice. Six-year-old Joseph Sevier played in the
shop.

The sudden attack by 40 or more Indians, evidently of the
Creek tribe, gave the settlers little time to take refuge from the
assault. Ann King and her son James were killed, along with Eliz-
abeth Snider and her son John. Their homes were soon aflame.
Charles Snider was shot and mangled by a tomahawk. The ap-
prentice fled the shop, jumped over a fence, and fell, breaking
his elbow joint. He did, however, escape with his life. Little Jo-
seph was killed after attempting to hide beneath a work bench.
Six scalps were taken from the victims.

Naomi Sevier quickly gathered about her the younger chil-
dren (including her granddaughter Susanna Snider) and with
Valentine Sevier reached safety in the limestone blockhouse.
Sevier's other small children, Alexander and Joanna, were also
safe with their parents. Sevier removed the blunderbuss from
its mount and held it in his hands as he fired. The concussion
injured his face and shoulder. Most of the ammunition had been
given to the young hunter so there was only enough material for
one firing of the gun. Lacking lead for a second load, Naomi
broke her pewter spoons and added these, along with some
glass, to the charge. The first shot injured an Indian who was
dragged away by his comrades, while the second served only to
deter the return of the attackers.

Meanwhile, at the King house, 12-year-old Rebecca Sevier
was knocked down and scalped when she attempted to retrieve
the children's bodies from the flames of the burning cabins. Her
father, with skill acquired over the years, saved her life. In 1844
she was interviewed by Lyman C. Draper and recounted the
events of the day.

The three men at work in the fields were unarmed and could
not go to the relief of the station. They ran to the river, climbed
into a canoe, and started for Clarksville to warn the townspeople.
The firing of the blunderbuss, a signal of danger, had alerted
Amos Bird and Anthony Crutcher who mounted their horses
and came to the relief of Sevier.

After swimming the Red River they arrived with a rifle and

1 2 Tennessee County History Series

pistol, but the Indians had already fled. The men soon reached
the scene of the carnage. They hastily buried the dead in un-
marked graves nearby and accompanied the survivors to safety
in Clarksville.

Within three years Sevier had lost four sons, two sons-in-law,
two daughters, and two grandsons. His stock and horses stolen,
his station burned with the exception of the stone house, his
health broken, and hope almost gone, Sevier moved his family
to Nashville a few weeks later. They remained there until James
built a family home on land owned near Clarksville. Returning
in 1796, Valentine Sevier remained in grave health until his
death February 23, 1800. He was buried on his property across
the Red River from his abandoned station. Later this beautiful
site was to become Riverview Cemetery.

On October 27, 1795, the United States and Spain, after long
and tedious negotiations, signed a treaty settling boundary and
navigational disputes. This ended Spanish incitment of the In-
dians against Cumberland settlers. By 1796, when Tennessee
had become the 16th state in the Union, difficulties with the In-
dians were under control.

Peace in the Cumberland did not guarantee prosperity and
justice, although the promise of lives free from theft and assault
gave assurance to those who tilled the soil and traded the pro-
duce of field, forest, and stream. Freed from the shackles of fear,
the pioneer now looked forward to enjoying the product of his
labor. Upon the Cumberland, as it flowed before him, he envi-
sioned the future tempered by memories of the past, and he
called it "Good."

Life in the Cumberlands

The typical early settlers, men of daring, integrity, self-re-
spect, and courage, were filled with a spirit of independence and
a love of freedom, mankind, and God. These qualities were with
them in the wilderness and at the stations on the Red and Cum-
berland rivers. Here they built their homes, cleared nearby

MONTGOMERY 13

fields, cultivated crops, and governed themselves, always with a
gun at hand to defend their right to their chosen way of life.

The lands chosen by these early settlers were reminiscent of
those from which they had come. Many of these families had
their roots in Virginia before coming to the Watauga and then
to the Cumberland. The new lands were similar in water, terrain,
natural vegetation, and trees providing a continuation from past
to present. The same type of soil and climate made familiar tools
and farming procedures applicable.

These similarities made friends and families more willing to
follow the early pioneers. Whether they came early or late all
faced the task of clearing the forest, usually by girdling trees for
later fall. Trees close to cabins were cut to prevent their use as
Indian hiding places, while other small plots were cleared for
immediate use as vegetable gardens or to raise small amounts of
grain. Every man had to provide for his own family, but coop-
eration was evident in providing protection and developing the
land. The need for food required constant vigilance and effort.
The meat supply was obtained from wild animals and streams,
while the seeds, fruits, and roots of native plants provided food
in season until gardens and fields were cultivated. Families
brought with them seeds for their gardens and fields, root stock
and cuttings for orchards and vineyards.

The annual corn crop was subject to the vagaries of nature,
cultivation problems, destruction by wild animals, and difficul-
ties at harvest time. The corn provided hominy and meal when
handled correctly. Hominy was made by soaking the grain in a
solution of water and lye. Meal for mush and bread was ground
by hand in a hollowed log with a stone pestle. Sweetening was
obtained from sorghum or the sugar maple. Salt, used as a pre-
servative for meat, was difficult to obtain and was transported
from Kentucky and other locations at great expense. Milk cows
were kept in stockades near the stations but beef cattle found
silage and shelter in nearby cane brakes. Infant mortality was
high when cow's milk was used for nourishment as the purity of
fresh milk was difficult to maintain. Babies, therefore, were sel-

14 Tennessee County History Series

dom weaned before the arrival of another child or before their
second birthday.

Cooking was done at the fireplace in the station. Some foods
were roasted in the ashes or on the hearth while meat was cooked
on a spit. Greens or other vegetables were boiled in an iron pot
that was suspended from a crane over the fire. Other foods were
cooked in a covered baker that was heaped with coals providing
sustained all-over heat. Iron cooking utensils were initially
brought by the early pioneers from their previous homes but
later the ironmonger and blacksmith provided additional or re-
placement pieces. Itinerant tinsmiths also provided wares. Plates
and bowls were hand carved from soft woods, while gourds were
used as drinking cups or storage containers. Soap, made from
fat combined with homemade lye, was supplemented by using
sand as a scouring device.

Clothing brought into the wilderness by the early settlers was
not easily replaced. Cotton as a cash crop required great acreage;
however, a few rows in the garden provided for the needs of the
family. Flax and wool were more readily available and the spin-
ning wheel and the loom were found in many households. Cloth-
ing for members of the family, as well as blankets, sheets,
coverlets, and carpets were all woven by hand on the loom.

A barter system was used in the community to exchange use-
ful services or commodities in limited quantities. Coins were
scarce so early taxes were often paid in commodities. Corn was
valued at four shillings per bushel, beef at $5 per hundred
pounds, pork at $8 per hundred pounds, and good bear meat
(without bones) at $8 per hundred. Salt was also accepted, being
highly valued at $16 per bushel.

Few books, other than the Bible, had been brought to the
frontier. Parents instructed their children while neighbors as-
sisted in the education of orphans. From father one learned
woodcraft, safety measures, and the means of providing food,
available comforts, and necessities. Father helped in the fields,
house, and farm, hunted and fished, played and prayed, setting
a worthy example for his sons. Mothers taught daughters to
spin, weave, and knit, to prepare gardens and preserve foods,

MONTGOMERY 15

to bear children bravely and rear their families, and to stand by
their men in good times and bad. Later field schools and aca-
demies provided more formal and advanced educational
opportunities.

Formal religious services were not appropriate on the fron-
tier; however, the blessing of food and the giving of thanks at
mealtime were observed in many homes. Prayer and Bible read-
ings, along with instruction in the commandments, were prac-
ticed in homes and outlying stations. Due to an absence of
established churches and a shortage of ministers Sunday was not
observed as a day of worship unless a minister was visiting the
community. Burials were conducted by neighbors but memorial
services were conducted for the recently departed whenever a
minister traveled through the area. Marriages were conducted
by magistrates representing civil authority while baptisms were
conducted when they were convenient and in whatever manner
was appropriate.

Births were assisted by helpful neighbors or by family mem-
bers. The first boy born in the community who lived to manhood
was John Sanders who later became sheriff of Montgomery
County. On October 13,1 785, Ann Dunbar was the first girl born
in the section. She lived to the age of 38 years and six days, dying
on October 19, 1823.

Medical treatment was limited with local herbs, barks, and
roots providing curative compounds and essences. Trial and er-
ror or previous experience dictated the type of treatment to be
attempted. Flaxseed poultice was used on festering sores while
a single flax seed, floated on the surface of the eye, collected and
dislodged foreign matter. Bleeding was encouraged for deep
wounds. Splintered bones caused excessive suffering and were
dressed with sugar and whiskey.

The interdependence of neighbors and families developed
a cohesive quality in the new communities. A saw, auger, froe, or
broad axe might be considered common property in the settle-
ment where these were used cooperatively in building cabins
and corn cribs. The sharing of danger and labor, joy and sorrow,

1 6 Tennessee County History Series

sickness and death developed a respect for individual worth and
community responsibility.

Waterways provided the safest means of transportation as
ambush from the bank was less likely than on the trail. Flatboats,
most practical for downstream travel, were built of heavy boards
with a flat bottom and were at least partially covered. The in-
terior had a fireplace for food preparation and space for daily
living and sleeping in addition to a cargo area. Upstream navi-
gation in flatboats was slow and strenuous, requiring poling, the
use of oars or sails, or warping. Warping was accomplished when
ropes from the boat were placed around a tree which served as
a pulley while men on board pulled on the ropes, dragging the
boat forward.

Keelboats, with pointed ends fore and aft, had a narrow deck
extending around the inside of the gunwales, with a cabin built
inside. Keelboats could carry cargo loads of 20 to 30 tons down-
stream but, like flatboats, were slow and cumbersome when mov-
ing upstream.

Roads often evolved from buffalo trails, expanding from
mere foot paths to wagon width. All roads were at times im-
passable due to heavy rainfalls, and river fords presented haz-
ards. When a ford became unsatisfactory the County Court
would authorize the establishment of a ferry. As early as April
6, 1786, James Ford kept a ferry at the confluence of the Red
and Cumberland rivers charging eight pence for a man and
horse and four pence for a horse alone. In later years bridges
were privately built and operated as toll bridges.

Ironware was necessary to the development of the frontier.
In 1788 North Carolina offered bounty lands on the Cumber-
land to manufacturers of iron. Iron ore was discovered in the
ridge between the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. Extensive
timberlands for charcoal and vast quantities of limestone for flux
were available close by. A limitless quantity of water was at hand
and slaves were used for labor.

James Robertson opened the first furnace in 1793. Mining
was relatively simple, using picks and shovels to scratch the ore
from shallow pits. Wagons brought the ore to the washes where

MONTGOMERY 17

it was broken into manageable size and washed to remove all
debris and dirt. The ore was now ready for the furnace.

Timber, converted to charcoal, was used to heat the furnace.
Intense heat melted the ore and transformed limestone into lime
which united with impurities in the ore and produced a fusible
impure glass, lighter than molten iron. The fused materials
floated to the top and were removed as slag. The iron settled to
the bottom and was drained into pig-beds, small gutters made
of sand that resembled a sow nursing a row of piglets. The pig
iron was then broken into pieces about 18 inches long and ham-
mered to prepare it for recasting.

Ammunition was one of the most necessary items on the
frontier. Gunpowder was usually made by the pioneers of char-
coal, saltpeter, and sulphur. Lead bullets were handmade in
molds, while shot was produced in some areas by dropping mol-
ten lead from a shot-tower. Round pellets were formed as the
lead fell from a great height into vats of water. Shot and bullets
were usually retrieved from game and remelted for future use.
In an emergency pewter articles were melted and molded into
bullets.

With Statehood: 1796 and Thereafter

As peace with the Indians came and as roads into the Cum-
berlands were improved, more families arrived in the areas sur-
rounding the great river. Men moved into the valley of the
Cumberland, ascended its hills, and observed the good land be-
yond. The south side of the river became populated by men in-
terested in lumbering and iron mining as well as in farming.

On February 6, 1 796, Tennessee adopted its first constitution
in preparation for statehood and on June 1 of that year was ad-
mitted to the Union as the 16th state, the first to be created out
of government territory. That same year Tennessee County was
divided into Montgomery and Robertson counties with Clarks-
ville remaining the county seat of Montgomery and Springfield
becoming the county seat of Robertson County.

Well chosen was the county name, Montgomery. John Mont-

1 8 Tennessee County History Series

gomery, a native of southwest Virginia, had, during the Revo-
lutionary War, been a captain of militia and a member of the
Committee of Safety of Fincastle County. When George Rogers
Clark conceived his bold plan for conquest of the Northwest, he
laid his plans before Patrick Henry. The Virginia governor ap-
proved these plans and authorized enlistment of seven com-
panies of fifty men each from the western frontier. Captain
Montgomery, commander of a company, was first to reach the
rendezvous at the Falls of the Ohio. After a series of victories
along the Ohio, Montgomery returned to Williamsburg with ver-
bal messages from Clark. Governor Henry commissioned him
as Lieutenant Colonel and ordered him to enlist three hundred
men and to rejoin Clark at once. With the greater part of the
needed number, he moved westward, fought an Indian battle,
and reached Kaskaskia, May 29, 1779.

Meanwhile, British activity, successes and losses, gave stature
to Clark, later promoted to Brigadier General. When Clark re-
turned to the Falls of the Ohio, he left Colonel Montgomery in
command of troops in the Illinois country. Upon completing his
service there, Montgomery, too, returned to the Falls in July of
1781, and a month later ended his service with the army in the
Northwest.

If he accompanied the Donelson expedition in 1779-1780,
he may have been on furlough. He had explored the Cumber-
land valley in 1771. We find his signature on the Cumberland
Compact of May 1 780. He was recognized by the North Carolina
Assembly as having settled on the Cumberland prior to June 1,
1780, and rewarded with a land grant for such occupancy. He
was present at the organization of the Government of the Cum-
berland Association, June 7, 1783, and was elected sheriff of the
district. He attended the session of the North Carolina Assembly
when, in October of 1783, the County of Davidson was estab-
lished. There he probably acquainted Martin Armstrong with
the idea of a town of Clarksville on the Cumberland, for in 1784
they sought claim to the 640 acres chosen for this purpose.

In 1784, with the establishment of the town and the selection
of commissioners he was in the town, which was to bear the name

MONTGOMERY 19

of his long-time friend, Clark. His wife and other members of
the family were with him. In cooperation with Evan Shelby and
others he destroyed the towns of hostile Cherokees on Chicka-
mauga Creek in 1 779, and in 1 794 he led Territorial troops, who
with Ore's forces and those from Kentucky, destroyed the towns
of Nickajack and Running Water, where hostile Creeks planned
destruction of the Cumberland settlements. Upon returning
from this expedition, he led a party of hunters into the Cum-
berland region of Kentucky.

While the party was near Eddyville, Kentucky, they were at-
tacked by Indians. In the group with Colonel Montgomery were
his son, William, his brother-in-law, Colonel Hugh F. Bell, Julius
Sanders, Charles Beaty, and Colonel Hugh Tinin. Julius Sand-
ers, the ordinary keeper, received four wounds from Indian
gunfire, but he recovered. Charles Beaty was shot through the
arm and escaped further injury. Colonel Tinin, having been
wounded when ambushed at his home on Red River near
Clarksville on January 16, 1793, was yet lame. As he could not
escape the Indian attack, he asked Montgomery not to leave him.
Colonel Montgomery kept himself between the Indians and
Colonel Tinin, thereby drawing their fire. Wounded in the knee,
he fell. Thereupon, the Indians rushed him with knives, killing
him and leaving his body, which was found when his friends re-
turned to the scene the next day. There, beneath an uprooted
tree, they buried him on November 28, 1794.

A stone indicates the site of his death; the County of Mont-
gomery memorializes his service on the frontier.

The American Gazetteer of 1797 reported of Clarksville that it
contained 30 houses, a courthouse, and a jail. Nashville, Knox-
ville, and Palmyra were the other towns in the state included in
this report.

Palmyra, formerly Blountsboro, was located on land of J. C.
Blount. The town, on the south bank of the Cumberland ten
miles downstream from Clarksville, had petitioned for estab-
lishment by the State Legislature. The act, effective April 20,
1796, stated:

20 Tennessee County History Series

Whereas, Establishment of the same will promote public good by
extending the settlements lower down the Cumberland River, and
bv facilitating trade and commerce to the District of Mero; Be it
enacted... that the spot of ground laid off into a town containing
two hundred and forty-six lots... with necessary streets, is hereby
established a town by the name of Palmyra.

Commissioners appointed by the same act were Dr. Morgan
Brown, Richard Miles, Robert Prince, Benjamin Thomas, and
Isaac Titsworth. Additional commissioners were appointed in
1809. The community prospered, for by an act of Congress in
1797 it was designated the first U.S. port of entry as it was the
first town reached from the Gulf of Mexico that was within the
infant nation at that time. All cargoes moving upstream were
subject to inspection and control at that point, 1 186 miles above
New Orleans and 48 miles below Nashville.

Port Royal, on the south bank of the Red River at the con-
fluence of Sulphur Fork, was about 25 miles upstream from
Clarksville. Having petitioned for establishment, the act of the
Legislature is dated October 25, 1797. The town of 30 acres was
laid off on lands of Samuel Wilcox, formerly of Port Royal, South
Carolina. Thirty-six lots of one-half acre each, together with a
square of two acres, allowed for future growth. Commissioners
were John Baker, William Connell, William Mitcherson, Francis
Prince, and Jonathan Stevenson. The first lots sold were to Isaac
Battle, William Connell, and Hezekiah Dickson. The town had
access to current roads which followed early Indian trails; how-
ever, trade was limited by the shallow waters of the Red, and little
navigation was available on this waterway.

At public auction on April24, 1819, lots were sold in the fu-
ture town of Cumberland (later to become known as New Prov-
idence) to be located on lands formerly owned by Valentine
Sevier. The town had been laid off with a public square and
streets adhering to cardinal points with a diagonal road to join
it to Clarksville and Hopkinsville, Kentucky. A natural well and
two springs guaranteed a constant water supply. This commu-
nity across Red River from Clarksville was also on the banks of
the Cumberland, thereby promising road and river transpor-

MONTGOMERY 21

tation. Trices Landing with its warehouses and shipping facilities
attracted steamboat trade. The town grew in population and
prosperity until incorporation was sought. This was effected by
an act of the Legislature on February 4, 1848, although the town
charter was surrendered on February 26, 1852. Later, an appeal
was made for reincorporation which was granted by the Legis-
lature of 1857-58.

New Providence, like Clarksville, was governed by elected
officials, these two communities being the only ones in Mont-
gomery County with this status. Following the Civil War, New
Providence again relinquished its charter and reverted to a com-
munity without elected officials. Only Clarksville remains an in-
corporated city.

Villages developed in every one of the 22 civil districts. Often
they were only a few miles apart because travel was so slow and
difficult. Many villages were at crossroads or near mills where
the only store in the area would be located. The village store
became the post office and also served as the voting place for the
district. In 1834 post offices included Brookhill, Dayleys, Fre-
donia, Kercheval's, McAllister's X Roads, Mount Henry, Red
River Forge, Searcy's, Williams', Washington Furnace, and Yel-
low Creek. The 1886 edition of Goodspeed's History of Tennessee
notes a significant number of towns with post offices which re-
ceived mail at two or three day intervals. There was no delivery
of mail, rather the recipient called for his mail in person or
found a friend to deliver it to him.

Workers, foremen, and others joined the owners and propri-
etors in areas where manufacturing was conducted. Throughout
the southern and western districts, as well as Districts 4, 8, and 9
north of the Cumberland, evidence of iron ore led to mining and
thereafter manufacturing of products of the mine.

The first furnaces, operated by Dr. Morgan Brown in 1805,
were about three and a half miles from the mouth of Yellow
Creek. Production was continuous in many areas from the 1 820s
to the Civil War. Among the better known furnaces were the Mt.
Vernon, the Washington, and the Blooming Grove furnaces,
along with the Webster, the Louise, and the Lafayette furnaces.

22

Tennessee County History Series

Rural mail carriers laden with supplies to be delivered on a cold day
about 1910-1912.

In other areas were the O.K. Furnace, the Montgomery Fur-
nace, and manufacturing enterprises such as the Blooming
Grove Rolling Mills, Valley Forge, and Red River Forge. In 1852
the Yellow Creek Furnace produced 700 tons of pig iron valued
at $15,000, and the Yellow Creek Forge yielded 500 tons of
blooms (ingots) valued at $27,500.

Each furnace property was self-sustaining; housing, com-
missary, and even a church were provided for the people in-
volved. Extensive land-holdings supplied the raw materials:
timber for charcoal, quarries for limestone, and vast deposits of
iron ore. Orchards, gardens, and fields provided food for men
and the mules and oxen whose strength and patience were re-
quired for the transportation of materials loaded upon wagons
or sledges. Cabins were available for the scores of laborers, some
of whom were slaves of the proprietors. Services of other labor-
ers were obtained by annual contract with farmers or others who
did not need their labor on their own property.

MONTGOMERY 23

A thriving manufacturing community, though not incorpo-
rated as a town, was Peacher's Mill on the Big West Fork of Red
River, eight miles from Clarksville. In a section noted for wheat,
corn, swine, and tobacco, the community's extensive grist and
sawmills and cloth manufacturing gave further evidence of
prosperity. A church, Masonic Lodge, stores, mill commissaries,
and residences dotted the area.

Raw materials for woolen cloth were locally produced, while
cotton arrived in bales from the Deep South. After being off-
loaded at landings on the Cumberland River the cotton was
transported by wagon to the mill site. Produce and manufac-
tured goods were sent to market, in the reverse direction, for
many years.

In 1 885 service on the Indiana, Alabama, and Texas Railroad
became available at Glen Ellen, and the woolen, cotton, and flour
mills were expanded. In 1897 a new factory at Peachers' Mill
converted cassimeres, jeans, and other cloths into pants, over-
alls, shirts, and a full line of garments.

The iron industry sustained a serious blow in 1862 when fur-
naces and forges became targets of Federal cannon fire. Slave
labor was no longer available for the operation of the furnaces
and forges, and furthermore, the newly developed Bessemer
process of smelting led to the successful development of the iron
industry in Bessemer, Alabama. This slow strangulation of the
iron industry reduced the need for shipping facilities on the
Cumberland in the vicinity of Palmyra, and difficulties of trans-
portation adversely affected Port Royal. Nevertheless, increased
use of the Cumberland, with its many steamboats plying from
New Orleans to Nashville, led to expanded activity at the Clarks-
ville wharf and the city responded with amazing growth and
business enterprises.

County and City Government

As the county and the city grew in population, expected and
needed services were recognized and many adjustments were
made. In the upper Red River section of the county near Sul-

24 Tennessee County History Series

phur Fork there were some settlers relatively secure from Indian
attack. It was in this area, south of Port Royal, that the Court of
Pleas and Quarter Sessions of Tennessee County met on April
20, 1789, at the home of Isaac Titsworth to complete the orga-
nization of the county.

Chairman Francis Prince with members Brazel Boren, Ben-
jamin Hardin, John Montgomery, George Neville, Jacob Pen-
nington, and John Phillips elected officers. Officials chosen were
Barkley W. Pollock, clerk; Joseph B. Neville, sheriff; Benjamin
Hardin, registrar; John Phillips, ranger; and Joseph Martin,
coroner. No tax collector was chosen at this time; however, Jo-
seph B. Neville, in 1790, was appointed collector of taxes ret-
roactive to the past year. County taxes were levied in 1792.

The first suit considered by the court involved a horse
bought by Andrew Jackson, plaintiff, versus Philip Alston, de-
fendant. The court ordered jurors to be summoned at the next
term and the 32 jurors selected represented leading citizens in
the eastern half of the county.

The second session, in July of 1789, met at the home of Wil-
liam Grimes. Sessions thereafter met in Clarksville where a log
courthouse, a prison, and stocks were ordered built.

Records of deeds for Tennessee County and thereafter for
Montgomery County are available from 1 788. The Montgomery
County books give detailed reports of actions from the first ses-
sion in 1796, covering legal questions ranging from power of
attorney to settlement of estates. Minutes of court in 1805 and
other records of wills from the early days are also intact. Mar-
riage records since 1837 are in secured books, but only inade-
quate and scattered records can be located for the preceding
years. These records are housed in the present courthouse in
Clarksville and are available for research.

The log courthouse, authorized prior to 1800, was built on
the hillside below the public square. It served until 1811 when a
two-story brick building was constructed at the north end of the
square on lot 60 and deeded to the building committee on May
1 1, 1805. It served as the scene of town elections, public auctions,
and religious services. Only the sheriff and his deputies were

MONTGOMERY 25

Montgomery County Court-
house, constructed in 1878 fol-
lowing the great fire of April 23,
1878. It is listed on the National
Register of Historic Places.

authorized to ring the bell for the opening and closing of county
and circuit courts, or to open auction sales of property. Permis-
sion was given to others for the ringing of the bell in case of fire
or for notice of public worship. This second structure served as
the seat of justice until a new building was constructed in 1844
on a plot of ground at the north side of Franklin Street extend-
ing to Strawberry Alley, opposite Carlisle Street.

Following the destruction of that courthouse in the great fire
of April 1878 property bounded by Second and Third streets,
facing Commerce Street, was purchased. Upon that land the
present courthouse was built at a cost of $100,000 for grounds,
buildings, and furnishings. Few changes have been made in the
structure other than those occasioned by the damage in the fire
of March 1900 and necessary adjustments for the comfort and
efficiency of officials and employees of the county. In recent
years the entire interior has been remodeled to accomplish this
objective while retaining all interior fittings of the original
structure.

26 Tennessee County History Series

Prior to 1800 Captains Companies were appointed for dif-
ferent districts in the county. These companies reported taxable
property, compiled census reports, and performed other des-
ignated duties. The annual tax report included categories such
as White Polls, Black Polls, Town Lots, Stud Horses, and Quan-
tity of Land.

The court system underwent changes as legislative acts re-
sponded to the needs of the community. The early court of jus-
tices of the peace transacted business as the Court of Quorum
from 1796 to 1856 when a judgeship was instituted. The Hon.
Thomas W. Wisdom was elected county judge. He remained in
office until 1858 when the former structure of the Court of Quo-
rum was reinstituted. However, an act of 1858 authorized the
election of a person "learned in the law, to be styled as the County
Judge" and Herbert S. Kimble assumed the position on April 5,
1858. The court adjourned in February 1862 upon the arrival
of Federal troops. The military governor of Tennessee ap-
pointed a replacement to serve until 1866, the end of the occu-
pation by Federal authorities.

Coincident with the early Court of Quorum was the Superior
Court of Law and Equity (1806) for the District of Robertson,
comprising Dickson, Stewart, Robertson, and Montgomery
counties. This court settled civil cases between citizens and han-
dled other such matters.

The circuit court system became statewide in 1809 and many
notable jurists served prior to January 28, 1862, when the last
session was held before the arrival of Federal troops. This court
was reconvened in May 1864.

Further changes in 1870 saw the criminal court separated
from the circuit court. The judge of the county court also served
the dual role of criminal court judge until 1974. At that time the
two offices were separated and the judge of the county court was
designated as a separate office from that of thejudge of the crim-
inal court. In 1978 the designation was changed; thejudge of
the county court no longer served as a judge in any court but
became recognized as the county executive responsible for con-
ducting the business of the county.

MONTGOMERY 27

Unlike the county administration, the city government has
undergone few changes. The city was administered by commis-
sioners from 1785 until the legislative act of 1819 changed the
method of government when Clarksville was incorporated. In
January of 1820 seven elected aldermen chose one of their num-
ber, James E. Elder, as the first mayor. Thereafter, the mayor was
elected annually by popular vote except during the war years,
1862-1865, when the city was under military control. After the
Civil War, the mayor continued to be elected each year until 1896
when the office was occupied for two years. This system pre-
vailed until 1962 when the term was extended to four years.

Fortunately, relations between the city and county are har-
monious and cooperation is evident in the number of joint
boards and committees. These boards at present deal with the
hospital, ambulance service, the school system, the library, and
the museum, as well as many other aspects of life which affect
the citizens of both city and county.

Legal Affairs

Montgomery County law and law enforcement practices are
based upon historical precedent. As a part of Davidson County,
North Carolina (1784-1788), the laws of that state were appli-
cable on the frontier. As Tennessee County from 1788 to 1790,
these same laws prevailed, although there were changes in 1790
when the area became a part of the United States Territory South
of the River Ohio. Few changes, however, are noted in the keep-
ing of public records during this interval.

For many years commissioners and county officials con-
ducted county and city affairs. On October 23, 1819, the state
assembly in Murfreesboro authorized election of officials for the
city. At the initial meeting, January 15, 1820, the first mayor of
Clarksville, James E. Elder, assumed that role.

Twelve ordinances were prepared and printed in the Clarks-
ville Gazette, February 19, 1820. A resume of the first laws indi-
cates that:

1. A patrol of two persons, salary $50 annually, duty at least two

28 Tennessee County History Series

nights weekly, should visit every part of town, once before and
once after midnight. Blacks walking the streets at improper times
or in kitchens illegally should be arrested, punishment not to ex-
ceed ten lashes unless refractory or insolent.

2. White persons in the company of blacks on streets or in kitchens
should be arrested and held overnight. Fine to range from $1 to
$10. Patrol to be on duty, if needed by mayor or aldermen, not
more than four nights weekly; pay for each extra night of 50c\

3. No blacks should come to town on Sunday, a holy day, or at night
without permission of their master in writing. Punishment of ten
lashes by constable or patrol.

4. No person should buy from or sell to a slave without written
permission of owner. Penalty in each case $5.

5. The overseer of streets, Philip Johnson, reported work progress
and participation.

6. All white males (ages 18-50) and blacks (ages 15-50) living
within the bounds of town were liable for work on streets and
responsible for bringing tools as directed.

7. No rubbish or wood should be placed in the public square or on
Franklin Street. Punishable if left over 12 hours by a fine of $1.

8. No wagon or cart should be left unattended on the square or
on Franklin Street and no teams were to be fed at such places. Fine
of$l.

9. No games of hazard (gambling) or address for any valuable
thing shall be permitted. Persons involved fined $5; household
owner fined $5 to $50.

10. There was a fee of $5 for public amusement of any kind. Fine
for violation $25.

1 1. Joel C. Rice was selected recorder for the current year.

12. Nobel Osbourn and John P. Ra[ ] were appointed the

town patrol.

Additional ordinances imposed fines of $5 for violations of or-
ders that no hogs be allowed to run at large in the town, that no
guns be fired in town, and that no one "gallup"a horse on the streets
of the town. Each adult male was subject to a day's work on the
streets and names of delinquents were reported by the street ov-
erseer. Lawyers, merchants, physicians, and others often preferred
to pay the fine of $ 1 . All males were subject to patrol duty with
three serving each week beginning September 11, 1820.

MONTGOMERY 29

During the years to come, all problems came to the attention
of the governing body. Law and order; administration of justice;
health and sanitation responsibilities; fire protection and water
supply; regulation of Sabbath activities; and street, bridge, and
transportation problems were met as they developed. The need
for taxes and fines to meet expenditures held the attention of
leaders of the growing town.

The first vehicle tax was instituted in 1830: $5 for four-
wheeled carriages and $2 for two-wheeled carriages. In 1847 a
license was required for drays hauling for hire, with each bear-
ing a tag with a designated number. Fees for hauling were spe-
cifically controlled.

In 1830 a merchants' privilege tax of $5 was applied to each
store, tavern, or grocery. The following year an additional tax
of $3 was imposed on "any establishment in which a foreign com-
modity is vended."

Taxes for specific types of merchants were imposed in 1836;
store, $5; grocery, $3; tavern, $5; jeweler, $3; drug store, $5;
hawker or peddler, $5; and shows or exhibitions, $5. Fees were
increased and by 1844 the scale was: dry goods and grocery
stores, $30; drug stores, $25; jeweler, $12; tavern, $20; bank,
$50; insurance office and agency, $25; carnival or other exhibi-
tion, $30; and peddler, $10. The old state tax on stud horses was
now applied as a city tax of $25, with an additional fine of $5 for
exhibiting them on the public square or in the streets. Each lot
occupant was entitled to keep two dogs, with any in excess taxed
at $1 each.

Fines were collected for infractions of laws dealing with
health and sanitation, riot and fire, illegal sale of liquor, and im-
proper conduct on the Sabbath.

Prominent Citizens

From its earliest days Clarksville attracted skilled lawyers.
Some acquired their knowledge while reading in the office of an
established attorney, while others attended law schools. The Ten-
nessee Gazetteer of 1834 shows 14 lawyers in Clarksville at that

30 Tennessee County History Series

time. They included N. H. Allen, George Boyd, A. M. Clayton,
F. W. Huling, Cave Johnson, Joseph Johnson, W. B.Johnson,
H. S. Kimble, M. A. Martin, William Overton, J. H. Quarles,
J. B. Reynolds, R.J. Rivers, and William K. Turner, the attorney-
general. The Clarksville Directory of 1859 lists additional names
of attorneys-at-law and subsequent census records give further
evidence of the importance of the legal profession in the county
seat. The practice of law today is confined to Clarksville, the only
incorporated town in the county.

A number of Clarksville attorneys were elevated to serve in
the state judiciary system. Horace H. Lurton was appointed to
the United States Supreme Court by President William Howard
Taft. Lurton served from 1910 until his death. His remains were
interred in Greenwood Cemetery at Clarksville, on July 15,
1914.

During the critical years of national development, Mont-
gomery County sent several Representatives to the United States
Congress. They were Parry W Humphreys (1813-1815), James
B. Reynolds (1815-1817, 1823-1825), George W L. Marr (1817-
1819), Henry H. Bryan (1819-1823), Cave Johnson (1829-1837,
1839-1845), Lucien B. Chase (1845-1849), and James M.
Quarles (1859-1861).

Prior to the Civil War the most well-known of these political
servants was Cave Johnson, representative of the Democratic
party, who held office during President Andrew Jackson's two
terms. It was during these years that federal interests were con-
centrated upon internal expansion, river improvement, high-
ways and turnpikes, railroads, and banking practices. During
Johnsons tenure as Postmaster General (1845-1849), appointed
by President James K. Polk, the adhesive stamp was instituted.
Until then postage had been paid by the recipient; now the
writer paid it. At this time trans-Atlantic arrangements were
made with the postal system of Great Britain. In urban sections
there was mail collection and delivery.

During the Civil War Gustavus A. Henry served in the Senate
of the Confederate States of America and John F. House served
in the Provisional Congress.

MONTGOMERY

31

The Victorian library of Colonel John F. House.

Following the war, James E. Bailey served in the U.S. Senate,
having been elected in 1877 to fill the unexpired term of Andrew
Johnson. John F. House was elected for several terms (1875-
1883) to fill a seat in the House of Representatives.

Willie Blount and Austin Peay, although not native sons, were
both resident in the county when elected governor of the state.
Willie Blount, born in North Carolina about 1767, eventually
served three consecutive terms (1809-1815). His decisive and ef-
fective call for volunteers in both the Creek Wars and the War of
1812 led to the designation of Tennessee as "The Volunteer State."
Continuing in public life after leaving the governorship, he rep-
resented Montgomery County in the state constitutional conven-
tion in 1 834, and died the following year at his rural home. In 1 878
the state legislature appropriated funds for the removal of his re-
mains to Greenwood Cemetery in Clarksville where a monument
was erected to memorialize him and members of his family.

32 Tennessee County History Series

Austin Peay, born in Kentucky in 1876, was a resident of the
county and an attorney in Clarksville when elected to serve three
successive terms as governor (1923-1929). He died two years be-
fore the expiration of his third term. Thousands of mourners
of all ages stood for hours on Clarksville's streets on October 5,
1927, to bid farewell to Peay, the only governor of Tennessee to
die while in office. As he came home to be interred in Green-
wood Cemetery he was accompanied by state dignitaries, griev-
ing family, and friends. His greatest honor, however, came from
the people of the Cumberland Plateau and other areas who jour-
neyed far to pay tribute to the man whose concern for good
roads, good educational facilities, and good government had
brought hope to these outlying sections of the state.

Commerce on the River

Indian canoes, French pirogues, and British armed galleys
rode the waters of the Warioto before settlers arrived in flatboats
in the Cumberland area. Later flatboats and keelboats were used
in commerce for many years as river trade upon the Cumber-
land brought outside wealth to the community through the sale
of native and manufactured products. Many of these boats were
constructed on the Sulphur Fork of Red River and on the head-
waters of the river in Kentucky.

Outgoing shipments of iron products followed shortly after
the first iron furnaces were opened in 1805 by Dr. Morgan
Brown. Among these items were large iron kettles used in the
sugar industry of Louisiana and Mississippi.

Steamboats appeared on these inland rivers shortly after their
invention in 1807 by Robert Fulton. Although subject to engine
failure and exploding boilers, puncturing by snags, grounding on
bars, and swamping in storms, the boats continually increased in
cargo space, as well as in comfort and security. In later years car-
goes arriving at Clarksville were transferred to the larger steam-
boats where the Red and Cumberland rivers merged. As
Clarksville lay between Nashville and New Orleans, upstream from
Palmyra, much shipping was destined to arrive at her wharves.

MONTGOMERY 33

Laborers and crewmen became available to expedite move-
ments at landings along the Cumberland. Palmyra, Kentucky, Lin-
wood, and Trices landings, as well as Clarksville and Searcy's, were
loading points for tobacco and other cargoes destined for New Or-
leans and other cities along the Mississippi, as well as for towns and
cities along the Ohio. The Clarksville dock received cargoes from
the east coast via the New Orleans transshippers. In the same way,
merchandise from Pennsylvania and Ohio arrived on vessels from
the Ohio. The Clarksville Gazette, on February 19, 1819, listed the
steamers Rifleman and General Jackson as bound for New Orleans.
Throughout the years to come, the arrival and departure of steam-
boats were announced regularly in the newspapers.

All dignitaries reaching Nashville by boat passed through
Clarksville and usually sought refreshment at local taverns while
cargoes were on- and off-loaded. Andrew Jackson and family
left Nashville in April of 1821 aboard the Cumberland en route
to Pensacola where he was to serve as territorial governor. There
were other occasions when he disembarked here and visited with
friends and colleagues.

Early in the evening of Friday, May 7, 1825, General Lafay-
ette and his party stopped briefly in Clarksville on his way from
Nashville to Louisville. According to the Nashville Whig, Lafay-
ette, "in order to gratify the anxious crowd of citizens who stood
on the bank, went ashore for half an hour to receive and return
the friendly salutations of the people."

Commercial interests flourished through the years, due, in
part, to the variety of domestic products sold elsewhere. C. S.
Williams' Clarksville Directory of 1859 gave a comprehensive sur-
vey of an annual shipping report:

Tobacco products:

Leaf, 13,000 hhds. at $125 per hhd. $1,625,000

Strips and dried leaf, 25,000 at $140 per hhd. 350,000

Stems and scraps, 700 hhds. at $35 per hhd. 24,500

Total $1,999,500

In addition to this, there are about 170,000 bbls. of flour, 16,000
hogs, besides quantities of bacon, wheat, beef, lard, etc. exported

34

Tennessee County History Series

Clarksville as it appeared in Putnam's History of Middle Tennessee, 1859.

from these ports annually, amounting to near five millions of dol-
lars in the aggregate, including tobacco. The tonnage at Clarks-
ville greatly exceeds that of Nashville.

Many of the larger craft were unable to reach Nashville in all
seasons, because of the shallows at Harpeth Shoals, and were
limited to the waters at Clarksville's wharves and docks.

Cultivation of tobacco in Montgomery County antedates the
county's name. Three years after establishment by an act of the
North Carolina assembly in 1785, Clarksville ws declared a to-
bacco inspection site, the first in western North Carolina.

The early settlers, of Virginia and North Carolina stock and
familiar with the methods of growing and curing tobacco,
brought seeds with them from their former homesteads. At first
tobacco was grown in small patches but as more land was cleared
there was extensive planting. Cultivation was profitable, for the
virgin soil produced a satisfactory crop with little labor.

The Clarksville tobacco closely resembled that of the James
River area. The soil possessed the essential physical and chemi-
cal properties, the moisture and fertility, and suitable climatic

MONTGOMERY 35

conditions were present to grow the dark, rich, heavy leaf so
eagerly sought in the European market. Prior to 1810 little was
shipped to New Orleans but by 1820 the annual export totaled
7000 hogsheads. Prices, as well as production costs, were low,
estimated to be less than $1 per hundred pounds in the produc-
tive years of 1 830- 1 840. In 1 840 Montgomery County's yield was
2,549,984 pounds, with prices varying from four to ten cents per
pound.

The first stemmery in Clarksville was erected by Henry F.
Beaumont in 1830 on the corner of River (Front) and Com-
merce streets. John Proudfit soon followed the practice of stem-
ming and shipping hogsheads of strips. Other pioneers in the
industry included John W. Barker, Stewart Brothers, Browder
and McClure, Walter H. Drane, William Jones, John McKeage,
and Fielding L. Williams.

As business increased there was concern for needed inspec-
tion. The 1840 state legislature empowered the county to op-
erate warehouses where inspections could be made, hogsheads
properly marked, stored, and shipped. The first inspectors,
elected by the county court in 1842, were William B. Collins,
John Kessee, William R. Leigh, and John Roberts. Privately op-
erated warehouses were also legal, however, and individuals
could still ship tobacco out of the state without submitting to
inspection.

The method of inspection was changed in 1845 when in-
spectors were ordered to draw from three places in the hogs-
head, instead of two, and unite the samples into one parcel to be
kept for inspection by the purchaser. The seller, however, was
still not compelled by law to have his tobacco inspected or
sampled.

Tobacco was prepared for the English market by removing
the main stem and packing the leaf strips, as dry as possible, in
hogsheads. The physical character of the Clarksville tobacco al-
lowed it to absorb 33 percent of its weight in water. After reach-
ing the English markets the tobacco strips were watered,
regaining their earlier weight. Each pound of water absorbed

36 Tennessee County History Series

thus added to the selling weight while allowing the English to
avoid paying the duty of 72 £ per pound on the added weight.

Tobacco sales continued in the county along the river at
places such as Kentucky Landing, Linwood Landing, Trice's
Landing, New Providence, Red River Landing, and Clarksville.
Speculation in tobacco futures and sales brought shifting pros-
perity and poverty to the industry. A killing frost in September
of 1850 caught two thirds of the crop in the fields and wild spec-
ulation ensued. The resulting high prices stimulated extensive
planting in 1851 which, in turn, caused record low prices for that
years crop. Hundreds of hogsheads of lugs sold for only lA$ a
pound. Droughts in 1853 and 1854 produced inferior quality
crops.

The crop of 1855 was of excellent quality and was success-
fully harvested. Though plentiful, prices rose in response to in-
creased foreign demand. This crop firmly established the
reputation of Clarksville tobacco in Germany, Austria, Italy, and
France. Increased demand from Great Britain, Africa, South
America, and the West Indies further extended the market.

In September of 1857 a great commercial panic swept the
nation and the ensuing collapse of credit affected all staples, es-
pecially the tobacco market. Every bank in Tennessee, with the
exception of Bucks Bank and the Clarksville Northern Bank of
Tennessee, suspended specie payments. Many tobacco busi-
nesses went bankrupt, while others struggled along, crippled,
looking forward to the next year. Confidence was restored in
part, in 1858, and the first Italian order brought comfort to local
dealers. The crop of 1858 was of fair size, and average quality
sold loose at 5V^0-6V^^ per pound.

The market maintained this general trend until the Civil War
years when a lack of labor and general disruption of farm life
and transportation depressed sales. Tobacco sales were resumed
in October of 1 865 at Trice's Landing by Poindexter and Pollard.
Sixty-two hogsheads were shipped to New Orleans in December
of that year, the first such shipment from the Cumberland River
area since 1861-1862.

As business increased so did the need for stable banks and

MONTGOMERY 37

insurance companies. Clarksville's first bank, a branch of the
Planter's Bank of Tennessee based in Nashville, opened in 1835
at the northwest corner of Franklin Street and the public square.
Profits in banking at this time were enormous and the success of
the first bank prompted the Bank of Tennessee to open a branch
in Clarksville in 1838 on the west side of the public square. The
Directory of 1859 lists the Northern Bank of Tennessee, opened
in 1854, and the short-lived Bank of America, opened in 1856.

All banks suspended business when Federal forces occupied
the area in 1862. Some resumed operations following the war
while others did not. Currently the Northern Bank of Tennessee
is the only one of the older banks to continue service to the com-
munity. The original Bank of America building now houses the
office of the mayor of Clarksville.

Insurance companies developed over the years with partic-
ular emphasis upon marine disaster to vessels, cargo, and life.
The Clarksville Marine Fire Insurance and Life and Trust Com-
pany was incorporated by the state assembly of 1839-1840. The
purpose of the company was to insure sea vessels, steamboats,
flatboats and other boats, freight, seamen's wages, goods, wares
and merchandise, as well as gold and silver bullion and money.

Other insurance companies represented in Clarksville in this
prewar era were the Aetna Fire and Marine Insurance Com-
pany, the Home Fire Insurance Company, and the Hartford Fire
Insurance Company, all represented by Samuel S. Williams; the
Tennessee Marine and Fire Insurance Company and the Phoe-
nix Insurance Company represented by D. N. Kennedy; City
(Hartford) Fire Insurance Company represented by Thomas
E. Jones; the Pennsylvania Mutual Insurance Company repre-
sented by W. J. Castner; and the Charter Oak Insurance Com-
pany represented by Craig G. Smith.

For generations the small communities along the river were
dependent upon the arrival and departure of steamboats and
other vessels. River packets, hauling cargoes oflivestock as well
as general merchandise and passengers, operated on regular
schedules. Even until recent years wholesale merchants supplied
many areas through the use of such small river craft.

38

Tennessee County History Series

The B. S Rhea (1886),/. P. Drouillard (1881), and the/. H. Hillman
(1882) on June 22, 1889.

Presently upon the Cumberland towboats guide barges
laden with petroleum products, sand, grain, heavy equipment,
and other merchandise. Seagoing barges and other river vessels
constructed in Davidson and Cheatham counties descend the
river through a portion now identified as Barkley Lake. Upon
these waters diesel powered commercial boats mingle with pleas-
ure craft. For commerce and for pleasure, the Warioto serves
throughout time.

Transportation

Clad in sturdy moccasins with leather britches and shirts as
protection from briers and brush, trappers and hunters entered
the forests and woodlands of the Cumberland. An ever-present
and bountiful supply of game awaited them and year after year
the lightly beaten trails became more easily recognizable.

MONTGOMERY 39

Along the trails came men with their pack-laden horses,
winding around boulders and unpenetrable thickets. Along
these trails pioneers ventured into the headwaters of the Red
River even before the 1780 arrival of families aboard a flotilla
of flatboats on the Cumberland. These frontier trails followed
the ridges where bedrock provided good footing and the need
for fording the numerous streams was infrequent.

In later years roads to the mill and market dipped into farm-
lands and valleys. Residents petitioned the county court for road
construction and extant court orders record the terminal points,
the petitioners, and the overseers of workmen, as well as the
property owners along the route. More than a score of such pe-
titions were recorded prior to 1810.

Economic growth is dependent upon internal improve-
ments. The early County Court assumed responsibility for au-
thorizing such improvements as roads, bridges, and ferries. To
finance these, citizen labor was used and tolls were charged. A
commissioner was appointed to have the road cleared between
specified terminal points, opened for use, and kept in repair by
men of the community served by the road. Thereafter, for gen-
eral upkeep, toll was collected on the turnpike. Later, companies
of stockholders financed road construction in preferred loca-
tions; seldom did these companies prove profitable.

Two of the earliest such companies were the Clarksville 8c
Russellville Turnpike Company (1830) and the Clarksville &
Hopkinsville Turnpike Road Company (1838). The improved
roadbeds proved to be suitable for use by carriages, and by 1839
coaches arrived from Philadelphia and were sold by enterprising
Clarksville merchants. Travel over long distances now became
more comfortable.

Post roads were designated by the United States government
and mails transported on such routes were granted right-of-way.
The post stage, drawn by four horses, was eagerly awaited by
persons in rural areas and towns alike. Mail was delivered to post
offices and passengers transported to hotels or inns. The coach
was then driven to the stage office where waybills were delivered

40 Tennessee County History Series

to the agent, the coach properly housed, and the teams stabled
and groomed. The Clarksville Weekly Chronicle of March 29,
1819, indicates that mail was delivered from Nashville to Clarks-
ville along two routes, one through Springfield and the other
along a more direct route in the area near the Cumberland River.

Interstate lines, authorized by the fifteenth Congress in 1818,
included a road from Trenton, Kentucky, to Clarksville and an-
other from Trenton to Port Royal. In later years such lines were
authorized to connect Clarksville and Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

Montgomery County is crisscrossed by a network of streams
and these tributaries of the Red River and the Cumberland cre-
ated many problems. At shallow points along the lesser streams,
fords were possible; however ferries were necessary at other
places. Hand ferries were operated at many points but proved
unreliable as waters rose and fell leaving entry points muddy or
dusty and often inaccessible.

As early as 1819 bridge companies sought incorporation.
The Red River Bridge Company's first project was to be a
$20,000 bridge within two miles of Smiths Ferry. The bridge was
completed in four years and tolls ranged from 1 $ for a sheep or
hog to 50# for s six-animal team.

Additional sites were bridged over the years, including the
lower Red River where Field and Martin constructed a bridge
of "a lattice work of iron" on a center pier. In June of 1850, only
a few months after the bridge was opened to traffic, it collapsed.

The Cumberland River defied bridging until the 1920s.
Prior to that time ferries provided the only means of river cross-
ing. This led to the citizens of the south side of the river directing
much of their travel and trade to the nearby counties of Dickson,
Stewart, and Cheatham.

Ex-Governor Willie Blount, Montgomery County resident,
in the 1834 convention for establishing a new state constitution,
emphasized the interior position of Tennessee as a factor making
construction of railroads a national as well as a state obligation.
The Legislature of 1835—1836 incorporated seven railroad com-
panies in the state including a local project. In 1831 a projected
line from Clarksville to the Kentucky border had been consid-

MONTGOMERY

41

Interior view of the dual-lane Ringgold Bridge over Little West Fork
of Red River.

ered as a part of the Clarksville to Russellville, Kentucky, rail-
road. Construction, however, was to be delayed for many years.

Rail service emanating from Nashville on the Edgefield and
Kentucky Railroad opened a portion of the county along its
northeastern border in 1852. Access to this railroad generated
interest in the further development of the most recently intro-
duced mode of trade and travel. Men of vision foresaw the com-
mercial advantage of rail lines from Clarksville to Memphis that
would reduce the time and expense of shipping tobacco to that
point for transshipping to New Orleans upon steamboats.
Northward a connection could be made at Bowling Green, Ken-
tucky, with the Louisville & Nashville lines.

The Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad was incor-
porated in 1852. Surveys were made and two major obstacles
were eventually overcome with high trestles and long bridges at

42 Tennessee County History Series

the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. All masonry work, as well
as preparation of the route and the laying of track, was done
with manual labor. Construction was done section by section by
professional railroad crews, while Irish stonemasons joined in
the construction of bridge piers and approaches. Supervision
was by skilled and experienced civil engineers. The bridge at
Red River in Clarksville, high enough to permit the passage of
steamboats, was perched upon a rock bluff at one end, while a
long timbered trestle was required across the flood plain near
the city. Bridges across the lesser streams required much time
and effort.

Rails were laid from Clarksville to Bowling Green Junction,
four miles south of Bowling Green, Kentucky. Here the lines
joined those of the existing Louisville 8c Nashville and continued
northward. This northern route was opened for service in Sep-
tember of 1860. The 64-mile trip to the junction required three
and a half hours of travel time from Clarksville.

Spanning the Cumberland River was less difficult than
bridging the Tennessee. Traffic from Memphis to the Tennessee
River was interrupted until the bridge was completed. Mean-
while, passengers and freight were ferried across to the tracks
which had been extended westward from Clarksville where the
route into the city was open. The first through train from Mem-
phis to Louisville was operated on April 15, 1861.

Service along the entire line continued until February 19,
1862, when the approach of Federal gunboats prompted Con-
federate troops to set fire to the local bridge to forestall its use
by the Union army. Following the war a new bridge and trestle
were constructed and service resumed. Due to altered economic
conditions vast changes were to take place. By 1872 the Louis-
ville & Nashville Railroad acquired the lines and established bet-
ter and more reliable service. Greater areas were opened to
commercial development as the L&N rails made contact with
northern markets at Cincinnati and southern exporting centers
at Mobile and New Orleans.

Efforts to provide train service from Kentucky southward
across the county were first made through the Indiana, Alabama

MONTGOMERY 43

& Texas Railroad in 1882 by way of tracks from Evansville, In-
diana, via Princton, Kentucky, to Clarksville. Eventually the rails
were intended to be extended to Mobile.

In 1884 the Indiana, Alabama & Texas consolidated with the
Mobile, Clarksville 8c Evansville Railroad. Tracks reached
Clarksville from the north of the city and continued along the
Cumberland River hillside to a junction with the lines of the
L&N. This 34-mile route served an evergrowing need.

After the 1887 acquisition of the railroad by the Louisville 8c
Nashville the route was changed to slightly north of the city. The
new route brought lines into Princeton Junction, three miles
north of Clarksville near St. Bethlehem. At this time the Clarks-
ville and Princeton branch was rebuilt for heavier traffic and
service continued until it became a financial liability in 1933. The
branch ran through highly productive agricultural territory
where tobacco, wheat, and livestock were shipped to market.
Raw materials destined for the textile and saw mills at Peachers
Mills were brought in at Glen Ellen and the finished products
were shipped from that site.

South of Clarksville, another area developing with the blast
furnace iron industry required attention, so the 3 1 -mile Mineral
Line was established in 1890 using the main line of the L&N west
from Clarksville to Hematite. From Hematite the L&N provided
service to Pond on the Nashville to Memphis division of the
Nashville, Chattanooga 8c St. Louis Railroad, which operated
certain spur lines under contract. This operation was simplified
in 1893 when the entire system came under the control of the
Louisville 8c Nashville. Shipments of ore, pig iron, tobacco, and
lumber were constant. As the iron industry waned and as rural
roads were improved the Mineral Line was no longer needed
and operations ceased in 1936.

These "ghost railroads" of Montgomery County have left a
few abandoned rail stations in rural areas along treeless paths
only a few feet wide where tracks once snaked across the lands
and where powerful locomotives sounded their approach to nu-
merous county crossings. Only in records and in memories do
the Clarksville and Princeton and the Mineral Line live on.

44

Tennessee County History Series

Mule car hanging wires for the electric trolley in 1896 at the corner of
Franklin and Second streets.

A successful venture by the Tennessee Central Railroad
Company in April of 1901 was projected to serve areas of Ten-
nessee parallel to the Cumberland River from Nashville through
Cheatham and Montgomery counties thence to Hopkinsville,
Kentucky. At that city connection would be made with the Illinois
Central system. In Nashville connection was available with the
Louisville & Nashville facilities. Originally designated as the
Nashville 8c Clarksville Railroad in early April of 1 90 1 , the name
was changed within a few days to the Tennessee Central, an es-
tablished line serving territory east of Nashville. Service was thus
provided to an area that had never had access to any rail lines.
The system was profitable for a number of years as passenger
and freight services grew. New competition from motorized
vehicles eventually forced changes.

On September 1, 1968, the portion of the line in Kentucky

MONTGOMERY

45

An early electric trolley car serving the Greenwood Extension.

and Montgomery County was purchased by the Illinois Central-
Gulf Railroad. Present service is threatened with extinction, al-
though the use of a spur track into Fort Campbell may have
some effect upon the utilization of a section of the rail line.

Air lines, truck and bus service, and passenger vehicles have
now replaced earlier modes of transportation in Montgomery
County. Outlaw Field serves private and commuter planes with
daily flights to Nashville and Louisville. Several truck systems
have terminals and facilities in the city, while passenger bus lines
offer schedules that provide for transfer to places throughout
the nation.

Military History

The rifle in the hands of hunters and pioneers was a source
of food and protection from man and beast. The early rifle was
made by the gunsmith or blacksmith, skilled in metal work, who
also cleaned and repaired guns for the pioneers on the frontier.

46 Tennessee County History Series

Bullets were made from molten lead poured into bullet-molds
and whenever possible were retrieved after being fired. Melted
and remolded, the pellets could thus be used over and over. In
an emergency, pewter articles were melted and molded into
bullets.

Having reached the frontier, men were enrolled in the militia
during the period when Tennessee County was a part of the Ter-
ritory South of the River Ohio. Muster days were eventful as
men from all sections of the county assembled in Clarksville for
contests, training, and comradeship.

Thus men and boys were ready when Governor Willie Blount
called for troops in the second war with Great Britain, the War
of 1812, as well as in the Creek War. During the War of 1812 the
Shawnee and Creek Indians were incited by the British to attack
Americans. In August of 1813 the Creeks attacked Fort Mimms
near Mobile killing men, women, and children, many of them
Tennesseans. As the Creeks moved toward Tennessee to attack
the Choctaws and Chickasaws, allies of the Americans, Andrew
Jackson and Tennessee volunteers moved to meet them in north-
ern Alabama. In the final battle at Horseshoe Bend on the Tal-
lapoosa River in Alabama, the Creeks were defeated and the
power of the Creek nation destroyed.

Volunteers from Montgomery County returned overland to
their homes. Soon after arriving, however, they were called upon
to rejoin General Jackson and participate in the battle of New
Orleans in January of 1815.

Although the United States did not officially participate in
the Texas war for independence in the 1830s, at least one Mont-
gomery County man, Joseph Bayless, did. A member of Crock-
ett's band, he gave his life at the age of 28 at the historic battle
of the Alamo.

At the beginning of the Mexican War of 1846, Governor
Aaron V. Brown of Tennessee called for 2600 volunteers. More
than 3000 responded to the call, including many from Mont-
gomery County. The state provided both infantry and cavalry
from each of its four military districts.

These men saw action under the command of two men who

MONTGOMERY 47

General William
Bovven Gampbell

would later become especially meaningful to Montgomery
County, Gideon Pillow and William B. Campbell. Pillow, later a
Confederate officer, was commanding officer at Fort Donelson.
Campbell, a Federal officer, was later honored when his name
was given to Fort Campbell which occupies land in Montgomery
County, as well as in adjoining Kentucky.

The Civil War

As secession fever gripped the deep south in early 1 86 1 , Ten-
nesseans including residents of Montgomery County were being
forced by events to make a momentous decision concerning
their loyalty to the Union. The previous fall Tennessean John
Bell carried the county in the presidential election garnering
1426 votes to 1042 for John C. Breckinridge, 95 cast for Stephen
A. Douglas and none for Abraham Lincoln. Bell's Constitutional
Union Party platform had called strongly for preservation of the
Union.

Cave Johnson of Clarksville, an influential leader in Andrew
Jackson's Democratic Party for decades, spoke for those who

48 Tennessee County History Series

hoped for a solution to the slavery issue short of dividing the
Union when he said "I think that this battle ought to be fought
not outside, but inside the Union, and upon the battlements of
the Constitution itself." In contrast, Governor Isham G. Harris
delivered a strong defense of Southern rights in an address to a
special session of the legislature that convened on January 7,
1861. He suggested that a statewide referendum be held to de-
termine whether or not Tennessee should hold a convention to
consider secession. The lawmakers set February 9, 1861 as the
date for the referendum.

Widespread debate at meetings and in the press took place
in the weeks preceding the referendum day. Gustavus A. Henry
was one of several prominent former Whigs who urged caution
and a rejection of the convention proposal. Secessionists were
equally strident for the need for such a gathering. Across the
state, voters rejected the convention by a vote of 68,000 to
59,000. The people of Middle Tennessee were almost evenly di-
vided on the issue, but Montgomery County went for the con-
vention by a vote of 161 1 to 389. The West Tennessee region also
favored the convention while it was rejected by East Tennessee.

During the six weeks following publication on March 1 of
Lincoln's inaugural address, feelings in the area were in flux.
The federal government's call for troops after the fall of Fort
Sumter, however, consolidated the people in favor of secession.
In response to Secretary of War Simon Carpenter's request for
two regiments of militia, Governor Harris responded, "Tennes-
see will not furnish a single man for purposes of coersion, but
50,000 if necessary for the defense of our rights and those of
our southern brothers."

By legislative act on April 25, 1861, Tennessee was declared
independent of the Federal union. The joint Declaration of In-
dependence and Ordinance for the Adoption of the Constitu-
tion of the Confederate States of America was adopted by
popular consent on June 8th. Montgomery County citizens cast
2631 votes for separation and 33 against. Tennessee officially
became a part of the Confederate states on June 17, 1861, and
volunteers prepared for service in the impending conflict.

MONTGOMERY 49

Each man supplied his personal weapon as there was no gen-
eral issue available from the Confederate government. The va-
riety of weapons soon revealed the need for similar guns as
ammunition was not interchangeable. This necessitated addi-
tional delays as guns were brought into some uniformity. Heavy
equipment or armament was necessary at forts along the Cum-
berland. Cannon and balls were made at the Whitfield, Bates
and Company iron foundry in Clarksville. This foundry was also
prepared to produce canisters and grapeshot. The accuracy of
cannons was tested by firing at a tree across the Cumberland
River. Cannon balls were also made at iron works down river
from Clarksville.

Training sites for volunteer troops were established at many
locations in the county. Kentucky troops were assembled at
Camp Boone on the Russellville Pike, northeast of Clarksville. A
primary camp, Camp Quarles, was established across Red River
at the fairgrounds alongside the railroad with access also from
the Russellville Pike. An inadequate water supply forced the re-
moval of the camp to Hamptons Station where Hamptons
Spring provided for the needs of hundreds of men. Here the
men of the 14th Tennessee Infantry Regiment had final training
prior to their departure July 12, 1861, for participation in the
Virginia campaigns.

It was these troops, along with the 1st and 7th Tennessee In-
fantry Regiments who fought brilliantly at Gettysburg in the
early days of July 1863. Although forced to withdraw, their gal-
lantry was recognized by the Federal forces. The regimental flag
of the 14th was captured but returned in later years in appre-
ciation of the Tennesseans' bravery.

Meanwhile, the men of the county prepared to defend their
principles and homes against attack. The women were engaged
in making uniforms for the troops and in caring for the sick and
injured. Men were already hospitalized in the large dormitory
at Stewart College when a large number of sick and disabled men
arrived from Hopkinsville in late November. The courthouse
was quickly prepared as temporary quarters and soon it too was
fully occupied. Additional hospital space was needed and on No-

50 Tennessee County History Series

vember 29th the trustees of the Clarksville Female Academy
were authorized by the state legislature to rent the premises to
the Confederate government. The welfare of the families of sol-
diers was of paramount concern to all and various local relief
efforts unified to become the Soldier s Relief Society of Clarks-
ville. Through this society the women of the county supplied
hospital clothing, bedclothes, feathers, flannel, socks, and any-
thing "to add to the comfort of the sick."

Local efforts to fortify the city were of no avail. The Confed-
erates, realizing that both the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers
provided easy access to the heart of the state, established Fort
Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland
in preparation for the impending Union advance. Both forts
were vulnerable, Fort Henry from water and Fort Donelson
from land. An inadequate labor force and lack of supplies fur-
ther slowed the projects.

On February 3, 1862, Federal steamers moved into a position
about four miles below Fort Henry and put men ashore. On Feb-
ruary 6, Fort Henry surrendered, outgunned by the Union
forces. Fort Donelson held out for two days, its surrender on
February 16 hastened by confusion among its commanding
officers.

Near Clarksville an unfinished and poorly located breast-
works atop the hill overlooking the confluence of the Red and
Cumberland rivers bore the gallant name of Fort Defiance. With
the knowledge that surrender was imminent, the troops were
ordered to withdraw from the breastworks and move toward
Nashville to join other Southern forces. A white flag was ob-
served at Fort Defiance as the Federal gunboats rounded the
curve of the Cumberland on February 19, 1862, and on landing
the fort was found to be deserted. Following Federal occupation
the name was changed to Fort Bruce in recognition of Colonel
S. D. Bruce, commander of the Union forces stationed there.

Federal Occupation

The gunfire from Fort Donelson was heard in Clarksville,
where the frightened populace feared the oncoming enemy.

MONTGOMERY 51

The first action taken by the city affected local saloon and liquor
dealers as all spiritous liquors were confiscated and destroyed.
Many citizens of the town sought refuge with rural families and
Captain Andrew H. Foote, upon entering Clarksville, noted that
"the city was in a state of the wildest commotion."

A group of prominent citizens called upon Foote to issue a
proclamation to the city stating his views and intentions. Despite
Foote's previous intention not to issue such a document, he com-
plied with the request in the hope that calm would be restored
to the community.

PROCLAMATION
To the Inhabitants of Clarksville, Tenn.:

At the suggestion of Hon. Cave Johnson, Judge Wisdom, and
the mayor of the city (George Smith), who called upon me yester-
day, after our hoisting the Union flag and taking possession of the
forts, to ascertain my views and intentions toward the citizens and
private property, I hereby announce to all peaceably-minded per-
sons that neither in their persons nor in their property shall they
suffer molestation by me or by the naval forces under my com-
mand, and that they may in safety resume their business avoca-
tions with the assurance of my protection.

At that same time I require that all military stores and army
equipment shall be surrendered, no part of them being withheld
or destroyed; and further, that no secession flag or manifestation
of secession feeling shall be exhibited; and for the faithful ob-
servance of these conditions I shall hold the authorities of the city
responsible.

A. H. Foote

Flag-officer, Commanding Naval Forces Western Waters.

Occupation by the naval forces, however, was brief as they
moved on to other areas of combat. The army, which was to oc-
cupy the area until 1865, had no such commitment to the
citizens.

Andrew Johnson arrived in Nashville on March 12, 1862, to
assume the duties of military governor. He quickly declared that
all appointive and elective offices were to be vacated until offi-
cials were personally approved by him. Civil authority ceased.

52 Tennessee County History Series

Military occupation of Clarksville was restrictive and harsh: no
newspapers, infrequent church services, no Christian burials,
and confiscation of real and personal property. An embargo was
placed on private shipment of freight. Importation of civilian
supplies was limited to articles and merchandise approved by the
army. Supplies dwindled and fuel was no longer available for
the gas plant. Most homes were heated with wood as coal was
reserved for the military. The scarcity of medical supplies and
an inadequate diet resulted in many deaths from influenza, dys-
entery, typhoid, pneumonia, and diptheria. Measles and small
pox took their toll among both the civilian and military popu-
lations. Confiscation of personal property in the form of town
residences, corn and hay, and livestock were felt throughout the
county.

There was a brief respite from Federal control when Con-
federates recaptured the city in August of 1862. At this time the
71st Ohio Volunteers under the command of Colonel Rodney
Mason were stationed in Clarksville to guard the railroad and
telegraph lines and protect supplies stored at the local wharf.
Having suffered extensive losses at Shiloh the unit was ill pre-
pared for further battles. Colonel Mason later claimed that on
August 18th his force of 152 men faced 800 Confederates led
by Colonels A. R.Johnson and T. G. Woodward. When the Con-
federate troops dashed into Clarksville Mason quickly surren-
dered. A formal investigation into Mason's conduct showed that
Union troops actually totaled 350, protected by entrenchments
and rifle pits, while the Confederates numbered only 300 cavalry
troops, armed with shotguns. According to Nannie Haskins, 16-
year-old daughter of a local physician, "one day in August... our
men under Woodward and Johnson came dashing into Clarks-
ville. The Yanks surrendered without hesitation. We took some
three to four hundred persons, one or two cannon, a great deal
of ammunition, many guns, horses, about one hundred and fifty
wagons and one ambulance." Mason was subsequently "cash-
iered for repeated acts of cowardice in the face of the enemy,"
and at a later date dishonorably discharged.

The Confederates gathered recruits and supplies while in

MONTGOMERY 53

Clarksville, harrassing Federal movements until September. At
that time Colonel W. W. Lowe, the Union officer in command of
Forts Henry and Donelson, was ordered to retake Clarksville.
On September 7, 1862, a large force from Fort Donelson met
the Confederates at Riggins' Hill outside of town. As Federal
forces opened fire with field pieces Woodward led his men back
through Clarksville and toward Kentucky, and Lowe and his
troops swept the countryside. Colonel Lowe and his men ad-
vanced unimpeded into Clarksville. The lawless misconduct of
the Union troops prompted the citizens of Clarksville to send a
lengthy telegram of complaint to General Grant. In November
of that year Grant promulgated special field orders against pil-
lage and plunder, killing livestock, and frightening civilians. The
punishment of persons and units guilty of these crimes stipu-
lated withholding of pay and court-martial.

Federal control of Clarksville was reestablished and contin-
ued until late in 1865 when hostilities ceased. Troops were again
stationed in town in 1868 to supervise the elections of that year.

Soldiers returning after the end of the war found devastation
and suffering everywhere. Untilled fields, unbred livestock, and
dilapidated homes required immediate attention. Disfranchised
and often dispossessed veterans fought new battles for economic
recovery. The years passed and tensions eased and the new gen-
eration now wore National Guard and State Militia uniforms
rather than the grey and butternut of the Confederacy.

As members of the state militia, Montgomery County men
in 1891-1892 served in eastern Tennessee during the revolt of
the Coal Creek miners. In 1884 Tennessee convicts had been put
to work in the marble quarries and coal mines of Marion County
and the Coal Creek mines in Anderson County. The situation
created discontent among the unemployed and underpaid reg-
ular miners who attacked the stockades and released the con-
victs. State militia troops called in to quell the disturbances were
at first unsuccessful, but in August of 1892 the troops took com-
mand of the situation in a short time.

Local men were also called upon closer to home to guard
access bridges over the Red River during the Tobacco Wars. The

54 Tennessee County History Series

years 1905-1908 saw bloodshed and destruction of property as
tobacco farmers, divided between independents and those who
favored a growers' association, struggled for control of the lu-
crative tobacco trade. The association, headquartered in nearby
Guthrie, Kentucky, had its salesroom in Clarksville. Night riders,
organized into secret fraternal orders, spread through the coun-
tryside destroying tobacco factories, machinery, and plant-beds.
While the association officially disowned the night riders, prob-
ably one-third of the membership was linked to both groups.
Governor Malcolm R. Patterson ordered the local militia into
service. While Clarksville itself was never attacked, armed
guards were posted in and around the town. By 1908 tensions
had relaxed and regular night riding died out in Montgomery,
Robertson, and Stewart counties.

Consistent with traditions established in the War of 1812,
when Tennessee acquired the nickname of the Volunteer State,
members of the state militia in 1898 offered their services during
the Spanish-American War. Company H left Clarksville on April
26, 1898, for training in Nashville. Those rejected for overseas
duty due to physical disabilities or age were returned to Clarks-
ville and equipped and uniformed by the state to serve as the
Home Guard.

On June 10th the First Tennessee Regiment, comprised of
12 companies, was transported via train from Nashville to San
Francisco, thence to Manila. Arriving after hostilities with the
Spanish had ended, the Tennessee troops became engaged in
new fighting against forces led by Emilio Aguinaldo, former
commander of Filipino forces in the rebellion against Spain. The
First Tennessee Regiment remained in the Philippines for about
one year until they were ordered to return to America. Led by
their commander, Lt. Colonel Gracey Childers, the troops re-
turned home to a rousing welcome planned by Clarksville
residents.

The heritage of service was again seen in 1916 when local
forces joined some 100,000 National Guardsmen in the border
war with Mexico. Clarksville men composed Company L of the
Tennessee National Guard and were stationed at Eagle Pass,

MONTGOMERY 55

Texas, for four months from November 19, 1916, until their wel-
come return to Clarksville on March 25, 1917.

On April 6, 1917, the United States declared that a state of
war existed with the Central Powers then at war with the Entente
Allies in Europe. Troops, so recently returned from the Mexican
border, now found themselves leaving on April 27th for training
for the European battle zone.

Eager to be of service prior to Americas involvement in the
conflict, four local men — Richard Carney, John A. Catlett, Mor-
ris Clark, and Nathaniel Gerhart — -joined the American Field
Service in the late spring of 1917. As the Sewanee Ambulance
Unit attached to the French Army they evacuated the wounded
from battlefields. This unit was awarded several Croix de
Guerre. An individual award was cherished by Mr. Catlett.

The Selective Service Act, a registration of all males between
the ages of 2 1 and 40, on June 1 8th was followed by the drawing
of numerals designating draftees on July 20th and the contin-
uing enlistment of volunteers in the Army, Navy, and Marine
Corps. Montgomery County's initial quota of 121 men was soon
filled.

Financial assistance in the form of Liberty Loan drives, Lib-
erty Bond and Victory Bond drives, and the purchase of Thrift
Stamps and War Certificates was equally successful. Those re-
maining at home participated in the war effort by making sur-
gical dressings and folding bandages at the Red Cross workroom
and knitting helmets, wristlets, sweaters, and socks for the
troops.

Following the Armistice on November 11, 1918, families
looked forward to the immediate return of troops. Montgomery
County men, however, came home at various intervals depend-
ing upon the unit to which they were attached. The gala home-
coming parade was delayed until May 15, 1919, to honor as
many returned veterans as possible, although many men re-
mained in the Army of Occupation or under orders elsewhere,
not yet discharged from the service.

Yet another generation was to serve in the war which ex-
tended across Europe in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The

56 Tennessee County History Series

local involvement was similar to that throughout the nation
when men and women served their country in the armed forces
as well as in civilian life.

The local situation was colored by the realization that an
army training base was to be built in the area. The search for an
appropriate site for the camp ended on July 16, 1941, when it
was officially announced that an Army camp would be estab-
lished in Christian and Trigg Counties, Kentucky, and upon ad-
joining lands in the Tennessee counties of Stewart and
Montgomery. The survey headquarters was established in Mont-
gomery County and survey teams were quickly followed by ap-
praisal teams. In January of 1942 the War Department
announced that final approval had been given and that construc-
tion would soon follow after the purchase of farmland.

In Montgomery County 466 tracts, comprising 42,841.71
acres (almost two thirds of the Tennessee total), were purchased
at an estimated cost of $1,757,051. The average price paid was
$39.94 per acre for both woodlands and the most fertile agri-
cultural land in the area, formerly known as "The Barrens."

The combined services of the War Department real estate
office and the Farm Security Administration solved the prob-
lems of affected families. Some were moved into towns, while
others were relocated upon available farmlands. Relocation of
families was completed in June of 1942.

Survey teams began work in August of 1941 and building
started February 6, 1942. Construction progressed rapidly with
a spur line of the Tennessee Central Railroad being extended
into the area. Materials were readily accessible and much local
labor was available. Workmen at one time numbered more than
10,000 with three shifts working around the clock. The com-
munity was at war against time. Troops from throughout the
nation were to have final training at the camp before moving to
European, African, and Far East battle zones.

One officer and a cadre of 19 men were assigned to duty on
July 1, 1942, at Camp Campbell as the nucleus of the 1580th
Service Command. They arrived at the camp while frantic ef-
forts were still being made to prepare for the thousands yet to

MONTGOMERY

57

f

**

The Franklin House, a pre— Civil War hotel on Public Square overlook-
ing the Cumberland River, now razed following a fire.

come. From this small detachment the personnel grew to its peak
in 1944 when nearly 100,000 men and women were stationed at
the camp.

The first combat troops arrived in the summer of 1942 and
the 1 2th Armored Division was activated September 1 5th. These
"Hellcats"trained at Camp Campbell until the following Septem-
ber when they moved out for maneuvers. From then until the
spring of 1943 the 26th Yankee Division was in training. Both
units were assigned to overseas action as was the 14th Armored
Division. On March 13, 1943, the 20th Armored Division was
activated. Acting as a training division, this unit trained and
shipped large numbers of armored replacements overseas.
Thereafter, the 20th was assigned to duty in Europe where it was
designated as the dreaded "Ghost Corps" by the enemy. Subse-
quently it was chosen to lead General George S. Pattons Third
Army in the eastward drive across France.

The vibration of heavy armament was heard for miles from

58 Tennessee County History Series

the post. The early dawn resounded to the drone of planes to
which gliders were attached for training and the rumble of tanks
was heard during maneuvers in Middle Tennessee counties.

The first WAC personnel arrived March 17, 1943, and were
soon followed by 419 other trained service women attached to
the 1580th Service Cornmand. This administrative unit estab-
lished a motor pool and motor corps and was also assigned to
specialist duties in the hospital and to administrative positions
in post finance, post headquarters, and post range headquarters.
This unit was inactivated in 1946.

After VE day Camp Campbell became an assembly and de-
ployment center for returning troops. The 18th Airborne Corps
returned from Europe and was inactivated at the camp in the
spring of 1946. Shortly thereafter, the 5th Infantry Division
moved in and was inactivated the following September. This Di-
vision had fought throughout the entire European theater of
operations. In March of 1948 a regular Army division, the 3rd
Infantry, moved into Camp Campbell, followed in the spring of
1949 by the 1 1th Airborne Division.

The community responded to the needs of the men and
women at Camp Campbell. Homes were opened and rooms
rented to the families and loved ones of troops departing for
Atlantic ports prior to sailing overseas. Civilians were employed
in the laundry and offices, and in many other areas of the camp,
relieving military personnel of many duties and thereby allow-
ing for more intensive training time. Civilian and military alike
joined in every effort to bring about a successful conclusion to
the age-old struggle known as war. Local churches, the U.S.O.,
and the Red Cross, along with other agencies met the immediate
needs of the military and their families.

Upon changing from a temporary to a permanent installa-
tion on April 15, 1950, the camp's name became Fort Campbell,
Kentucky. The postwar years have seen modification in military
operations and training at the fort, as well as the removal of tem-
porary structures and the construction of permanent buildings
and additional training and recreational facilities. Throughout
the years, the community has accepted and adapted to these

MONTGOMERY 59

changes and continues to have excellent affiliation with the mil-
itary authorities. The number of military families who have re-
tired in the area attests to their acceptance and desire to remain
in the community.

We salute each man who has trained in the mud and dust, in
the heat and cold on the wooded lands and windswept fields of
Fort Campbell. History is made as truly by the paratrooper's
boots as by the pioneer s moccasins, by the missile as by the blun-
derbuss, by men in uniform as by men in buckskin. The military
history of a community never ends, as each generation prepares
to defend the principles upon which the United States was
founded: liberty and justice for all.

The Press

Far from their earlier homes the pioneers yearned for news
of family and friends. Letters and messages were passed from
person to person moving westward across the mountains and
into the basin of the Cumberland. Travelers brought informa-
tion of personal and national importance. As the years passed,
riverboatmen brought newspapers from Cincinnati, New York,
and New Orleans. Clubs were formed and members received
printed materials, periodicals, and books from British
publishers.

The first newspapers were published in Clarksville in 1808
but copies from that year are not available. The Rising Sun is
assumed to have been printed by Francis Richardson at the same
time that the Clarksville Chronicle was published by George
Crutcher and William Kendall.

Montgomery County was the most important area in the
Sixth Congressional District, so the local newspaper carried all
official notices for the surrounding counties of Dickson, Hum-
phreys, Robertson, and Stewart. Acts of Congress were also re-
ported to the local readers.

The journalist of early days was nonpartisan; however, as the
years passed, newspapers bore the names of political parties.
Party lines were drawn taut and political fervor was at white heat.

60 Tennessee County History Series

The publishers of such newspapers searched far and wide for
adequate and skilled men to serve as political editors. Each news-
paper was a power in the community, aiding and serving can-
didates during elections and reporting the actions of elected
officials. Many newspapers which advocated national and state
politics were short-lived, often publishing weekly or semiweekly.
The Whig Party, the Know-Nothing Party, the Republican, and
the Democratic parties all found representation in various local
papers. Blacks also owned and edited their own local paper dur-
ing the early 1900s.

An extant copy of the United States Herald, Vol. 1, No. 5, pub-
lished by Theoderick F. Bradford, bears the date Saturday, Au-
gust 11, 1810. Both foreign and national news were reported,
as well as local news with information on business activities. No-
tice of a new store selling an excellent assortment of "Dry and
Fancy Goods, Hard and Queen's Ware, Crawley and Blister
Steel, Iron and Tin Ware, Groceries and a well chosen collection
of books" was made by Owen Reilly. His store on Water Street,
formerly occupied by Mr. Carraway, held merchandise recently
received from Philadelphia. Salt was advertised for sale at the
tanyard of James Williams, while other items were offered to the
public as boats arrived from the Ohio River cities. In this same
issue attorney George Simpson inserted a dissolution notice for
the business of John H. Poston and William King, deceased, and
doctors Maxwell Sharp and R. F. Slaughter advertised their
medical practice in Clarksville. There is evidence that this pub-
lication continued until 1815 and probably thereafter.

Another early paper, the Recorder, Vol. 1, No. 14 of December
15, 1814, with editor George Crutcher, reviewed movement of
British troops at this crucial hour. Local news referred to phy-
sicians Anthony Foster and Peter Cole, as well as to saddler Rob-
ert W Bell and the shop of Small & Bell which held general
variety items for sale. Announcement of Sparta Academy facil-
ities was quite detailed. Other items of interest included corre-
spondence from U.S. Representative Parry W Humphreys in
Washington.

A copy of the new series Chronicle, dated January 21, 1818,

MONTGOMERY 61

as Vol. IV, No. 33 indicates that the paper was four years old.
This dates the new series back to August 1813, but there is no
reliable information as to the date of the old series. It is believed
to date back to 1808. This 1818 issue notes "printed and pub-
lished at Wells and Peebles at two dollars a year in advance, or
three dollars at expiration of three months." Local newspapers
were now more complete with national and international reports
being very detailed. In this issue we find a long list of letters
being held by the postmaster James E. Elder. Recipients were to
call or send for this personal mail.

As ownership of the newspapers changed or mergers were
accomplished, titles were changed. By 1817 the Chronicle's own-
ership changed and it was dubbed the Weekly Chronicle by its new
owners Haydon Wells and Burrell Peebles. Within a year the
partnership dissolved and Peebles became sole publisher of the
again renamed Tennessee Weekly Chronicle. Peebles died a year
later and ownership was picked up by the papers printer, T. H.
McKeen, who retitled the paper the Town Gazette and Farmers
Register to reflect Clarksville's agricultural base.

Competition emerged in 1819 in the form of John Fitzger-
ald's Clarksville Gazette which was immediately popular. Within
four months Fitzgerald purchased the Town Gazette and merged
the two papers. The new paper, the Clarksville Gazette, continued
publication until January 1820 when it was sold to C. D. McLean
and Thomas S. Shannon. By 1830 this paper had become the
Clarksville Chronicle and continued publication until the Federal
occupation in 1862 which ended all local publications. Another
paper of long standing was the Jeffersonian, printed from 1844
until February 1862.

After the Civil War the Chronicle resumed publication under
the guidance of J. A. Grant and J. S. Neblett, who had purchased
the paper in 1857. In September of 1865 the editors were ar-
rested and taken to Nashville for trial because of an editorial
deploring the substitution of black troops for white. The two
men were released, however, upon agreeing to publish no sim-
ilar articles in future. The newspaper continued uninterrupted

62 Tennessee County History Series

publication, so that legal notices could be brought to the public's
attention.

Competition emerged again in 1869 in the form of the To-
bacco Leaf, established as the voice of the tobacco farmers. This
paper prospered despite a fire in 1878 which destroyed its of-
fices, forcing it to turn to the rival Chronicle for aid in printing
until independent operations could be resumed.

The final consolidation of the city's two leading newspapers
took place on March 6, 1890, when the Clarksville Tobacco Leaf
bought the interests of the Clarksville Chronicle, becoming the
Leaf -Chronicle. Soon after the merger another competitor was
born, the weekly Clarksville Star. Published by L. F. Sickenberger,
the paper became a semiweekly and eventually a daily. With Sick-
enberger's death in 1929 ownership was willed to his nephew,
W. W. Barksdale, Jr. Publication continued until 1940 when the
Star was sold to the Leaf-Chronicle.

In 1917 the Leaf-Chronicle became a full member of the As-
sociated Press. In 1924 a special Sunday edition was begun, re-
placing its Saturday edition. Not until April 4, 1983, did a
Saturday edition reappear. During the Depression, in 1933, a
banking holiday left the paper short of funds. The Leaf -Chronicle
began paying its employees in script it printed itself which would
be redeemed by merchants who advertised in the paper.

In 1940 the paper further expanded its scope by becoming
affiliated with a number of weekly newspapers in Middle Ten-
nesse as publisher. Currently the Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle prints
local papers for four neighboring counties. Featuring many col-
umns and special sections of national, state, and local interest,
the Leaf -Chronicle serves the ever-growing demands of the ex-
panding Montgomery County area. Published seven days a
week, the paper gives adequate and appropriate distribution of
information to its 18,000 daily and 21,700 Sunday readers.

A weekly, the Montgomery County News, has provided local in-
formation, advertising, and material of historical interest, as well
as public notices, from 1958 to the present. In this manner it
offers a review of events within a limited time frame. The Courier,

MONTGOMERY

63

Collapse of the Masonic Building on August 12, 1949, at Third and
Commerce streets with one casualty. This photograph was used in Life
and other publications.

64 Tennessee County History Series

a publication geared to Fort Campbell news, is also widely read
by the military and civilian population.

Despite inroads of radio and television, the printed word still
conveys for all time a record of events, serving as an indispen-
sible tool for research and reference. Such is the unique service
of a local newspaper, whether available in the archives or on
microfilm.

The Clarksville-Montgomery Public Library has on film an
almost complete file of local newspapers dating from 1810 to the
present. Although some issues are missing, history awaits the
readers. Reels of these same issues are also available in the Austin
Peay State University library and in the Tennessee State Library
and Archives in Nashville.

Education

Pioneers coming to the Cumberland country were educated
people, as was indicated when only one "X"was used among the
256 signatures of those signing the Cumberland Compact of
May 1780. These responsible citizens recognized the need for an
educated posterity. Informal education in homes met immediate
needs and "field" schools developed with the years. These field
schools were primitive one-room schools situated in a farmer's
field and attended by children living on the farm and possibly
on a neighboring farm.

Private education flourished in town and country. As early as
1814 the rural Sparta Academy announced terms: Arts and Sci-
ences, $25 per annum; Latin, Greek, English, French language,
writing and arithmetic, $20. Throughout the rural districts such
boarding schools grew. On February 16, 1818, an academy
opened on Spring Creek about ten miles from Clarksville. Un-
der the direction of Mr. Barry the academy offered mathematics,
English, writing, Latin, Greek, and French within the $12.50 to
$20 per year range.

Two years later John D. Tyler's new school opened on Spring
Creek. Sessions were from January 26 to June 20 and from July
1 to December 20. The usual courses were offered and accom-

MONTGOMERY 65

modations were available for six to eight boarding students who
were to provide their own bed, bedding, and candles. Fees were
$7.50 to $10 in addition to $35 for board per session.

Elsewhere in the county, Haydon E. Wells opened a school
at Salem Meeting House in January of 1821. About six miles
south of Clarksville it accommodated eight to ten boarding stu-
dents and taught grammar, spelling, and arithmetic. The Female
Boarding School, conducted by Mrs. Mary Jane R. Kellebrew,
opened in the spring of 1821 in northern Montgomery County.
Fees were $100 per annum and courses were planned to ac-
quaint the young ladies with conversational ability when enter-
taining their husbands friends. They were knowledgeable in
such courses as writing, arithmetic, the English language, prac-
tical geometry, geography, astronomy, ancient and modern his-
tory, drawing, painting, construction of maps, creation of
artificial flowers, and skills in housewifely duties. They were ex-
pected to manage the family affairs as well as to train the house
servants. The home reflected the cooperation of the husband
and the wife. To serve another section of the county a Female
School was opened by Mrs. Harrison seven miles west of Clarks-
ville and six miles north of Palmyra. In 1822 this school offered
instruction in painting, needlework, reading, grammar, geog-
raphy, writing, and history.

While private schools for girls were well attended in rural
areas, the Clarksville Female Academy, chartered in 1846, at-
tracted boarding students from throughout the South. Parents
concerned for unhealthful conditions in the malarial climate of
many states enrolled their daughters in the Clarksville school
after the former Allen Johnson residence was expanded to ac-
commodate boarding students, as well as many local day pupils.
Years later, after the reorganization of the system of free schools
and an increase in the number of academies all over the South,
the large expense of maintaining buildings caused a move to
more limited facilities. Another building was constructed on
Madison Street in the late 1880s for the area's local young ladies.
After the joint high school offered services to rural students the

66

Tennessee County History Series

The Clarksville Female Academy operated from the 1840s to the 1880s
on the south side of Madison Street between Fifth and Sixth streets.
The building was removed and the lots sold in 1885.

building became the dormitory for those girls requiring accom-
modations in town.

Instruction in nonacademic subjects also was available. A
dancing school, headed by Mr. J. Suder, formerly of Charleston,
was held at the Clarksville Inn as early as 182 1 . Additional danc-
ing schools were established through the years to help students
"do away with that awkward diffidence which at times makes
them appear rude." Vocal music was also offered to male and
female students at various locations. Robert L. Newman, an in-
ternationally known artist of the time, returned to Clarksville in
November of 1858 offering instruction in drawing "free of
charge as long as my health and time will permit of it."

There is no evidence of there having been any public schools
until 1806, at which time a compact with the federal govern-
ment, the Cession Act, made provisions for public schools. The
act required Tennessee to set apart 100,000 acres of land to sell
in support of two colleges and a similar amount for establishing

MONTGOMERY 67

one academy in each county. Such lands, however, were not
available so funds were thereby limited.

Under the 1806 act Montgomery County leaders chose to
incorporate the Rural Academy to be operated at a site on the
eastern edge of town at the crest of the hill on Washington Street
(later College Street). This site was to serve successive education
institutions even to the present time, being a portion of the cam-
pus of Austin Peay State University.

In 1826, when there were only 27 counties in the state, funds
were made available for the establishment of one academy in
each county. Supplementary funds, however, were needed. Pri-
vate contributions were used for buildings and additional serv-
ices and these academies were maintained by tuition funds,
thereby practically becoming private schools. Other academies
were established by private donations from social, fraternal, and
religious groups. Such academies, seminaries, and private
schools constituted the pattern of education in Tennessee until
1873.

Following the Civil War, expanded public school facilities de-
veloped. No longer were classes held in church basements and
in rented residences. Grades one through seven were available
in 1877, but additional units were added from time to time until
the twelfth grade was incorporated into the program in 1939.

Two brick buildings specifically for educational purposes
were constructed in 1879. Howell School, a three-story brick
building, served the white students while a similar two-story one,
later named the Burt School, served the smaller black popula-
tion. Each was on Franklin Street, Howell School opposite Fifth
and the other opposite Tenth. A milestone in education was the
construction in 1906—1907 of the joint high school for city and
county whites, grades eight through eleven, while expansion of
the black school was accomplished by annexes to the earlier
building. Integration of the public school system was achieved
in 1965.

There has been some sort of higher education in the county
since its earliest days. In 1 8 1 1 the Rural Academy became Mount
Pleasant Academy, developing in 1 825 into Clarksville Academy.

68 Tennessee County History Series

In 1848 the academy became a college upon transfer of admin-
istrative authority to the Masonic Lodge of Tennessee. There-
after, the Masonic University and Montgomery Academy
increased in faculty and services with greater emphasis upon an-
cient and modern languages.

During this period the "Castle," a turreted three-story build-
ing of Elizabethan style, was constructed in 1850. That year the
college opened under the local lodge rather than the state lodge
and the charter of 185 1 incorporated it as Montgomery Masonic
College. Unable to properly finance the institution, the property
was transferred to the Presbyterian Synod of Tennessee, and in
1856 it was identified as Stewart College with greater emphasis
placed upon courses in science.

A program of study was instituted to prepare the student for
life as a professional man and for skills in conversation with
those persons with whom he would come in contact in other
fields. In 1872 every student took four years of Latin and Greek,
three years of mathematics (algebra, geometry, trigonometry,
calculus, and their applications in surveying, navigation, and an-
alytic geometry), three years of science (physics, chemistry, as-
tronomy, geology), two years of "Metaphysics" which included
philosophy, psychology, ethics, logic, political economy, and
"Evidences of Christianity," and finally one year of "ancient his-
tory and geography." Preparation for the medical and legal
professions, as well as surveying, was extended beyond the class-
room into apprenticeships with established practitioners.

From 1875 to 1925 Southwestern Presbyterian University oc-
cupied the now expanded grounds and buildings of Stewart Col-
lege. Emphasis was upon arts and sciences and the school of
theology. In 1917 women were admitted to the previously all
male school. The limited number of male students, due to en-
listment in the military service, made the inclusion of female stu-
dents of the area most welcome.

The removal of Southwestern to Memphis in 1925 left the
campus vacant until 1927 when the state of Tennessee acquired
the grounds. Austin Peay Normal School opened its doors in
1929 as a two-year college for the training of teachers. The

MONTGOMERY 69

Austin Peay

school was named to honor Austin Peay, a native of Kentucky
but resident of Clarksville when elected to serve as Tennessee's
governor for three successive terms, beginning in 1923.

The school expanded to offer the Bachelor of Science de-
gree, conferring this degree first to graduates in 1939. In 1943
the name was changed to Austin Peay State College, and as the
years passed additional degrees, the Bachelor of Arts and the
Master of Arts in Education, were conferred upon qualified
graduates.

During this period the face of the campus was changing as
older building were razed and modern structures erected. Gone
were the Castle building, Stewart-Waddel Hall, and as time
passed the early dormitories, Robb and Calvin halls, would dis-
appear. Among the last of Southwestern s structures to be razed
were the President's residence and the Student Commons, which
had been damaged by fire and was no longer needed. The school
now occupies 74 buildings on more than 200 acres in Clarksville
in addition to the University farm of 475 acres two miles north
of the main campus.

70 Tennessee County History Series

The University is comprised of three colleges, Education and
Human Service, Arts and Sciences, and the Business and Profes-
sional Programs, as well as the Graduate School. University sta-
tus became effective in September of 1967, when the institution
was authorized to offer additional degrees. Among these are the
Master of Arts and the Master of Science (1967), the Master of
Music Education (1969), the Master of Business Administration
(1977), the Bachelor of Business Administration (1979), and the
Bachelor of Science in Nursing in the same year. Two additional
degrees were added in 1974, the Bachelor of Fine Arts and the
Education Specialist.

A faculty of 194, a majority holding earned doctorates, offers
instruction and challenge to more than 5000 students on the
main campus and at additional facilities at Fort Campbell, Ken-
tucky. As Montgomery County borders several Kentucky coun-
ties, students from these areas have access to superior
instruction near their homes. Many commute daily to classes
while others reside in the community and return home over free
days and weekends.

Today private tuition instruction continues while the public
school system has improved over the years. Tuition schools in
the area today are the Clarksville Academy (1970), the Mont-
gomery Christian Academy (1984), and the Bible Baptist Acad-
emy which exists in conjunction with the Clarksville Bible
College, the only four-year Bible college in the area. Two other
advanced level schools, the North Tennessee Bible Institute, in-
corporated in 1971, and the Academy of Orthodox Theology,
are accredited.

Public education in Montgomery County has expanded its
facilities and courses of study to meet the demands of current
times. Under the Clarksville-Montgomery County Unified
School System, 14,000 pupils are served by four high schools,
three middle schools, and eleven elementary schools. An inno-
vative "Adopt a School" program is in progress wherein busi-
nesses and industries adopt a specific school and provide
leadership, funds, and appropriate services to that school.

The Montgomery County Vocational and Technical School

MONTGOMERY 71

offers evening adult classes, as well as vocational instruction in
conjunction with high school programs. A Tennessee Vocational
Training Center, for the rehabilitation of physically and men-
tally handicapped individuals, is also located in Clarksville.
Adult basic education programs are offered to adults who have
less than 12 years of formal education. This program provides
instruction in basic skills and preparation for the GED test. An
educated citizenry is a prerequisite to a prosperous and ex-
panding community such as Montgomery County.

The Medical Experience

Beset by illnesses and accidental injuries settlers along the
Warioto sought relief through medications made from the roots,
bark, sap, leaves, and fruit of native plants, and from herbs
brought from their earlier homes in the mountains of North
Carolina and Virginia. Experience had taught the value of the
minerals of the earth and the tallow, greases, and unguents of
animals. Trial and error as well as experience indicated the type
of needed treatment.

Scalping was an ever-present fear upon the frontier. Accom-
plished in two minutes by the sharp scalping knife of steel, it left
the victim maimed and bleeding, subject to death from infection
if he survived the initial attack. Sometimes only the scalp-lock,
three to four inches in diameter, was lifted, but at other times
the entire head was skinned resulting in immediate death from
excessive bleeding. Many of those who lost the scalp-lock sur-
vived, despite the agony, fear, shock, and pain, because of the
skill and determination of a friend or loved one.

In the Indian wars a treatment for scalping had been devised
which James Robertson of Davidson County had learned from
Dr. Patrick Vance during earlier campaigns. Shallow pits were
made in the skull in order to create a new flesh covering for the
exposed bone. A flat, pointed, straight awl proved to be the best
instructment for tapping the skull, as the skull was thick and
sometimes difficult to penetrate. The awl was tapped gently until
the outer covering of the skull was penetrated and a reddish

72 Tennessee County History Series

fluid exuded. Borings were spaced at inch intervals and other
points were penetrated at intermediate sections once the reddish
substance had risen in the original pits. The exposed skull was
soon covered with this gelatinous substance and, after a period
of two years, by a skinlike tissue devoid of hair follicles. The pe-
riod of infection was an exceedingly dangerous time, and only
by loving and careful attention did a victim survive. Rebecca Sev-
ier's recovery from scalping November 11, 1794, was one of the
most notable cases in the Tennessee chronicles.

Infant mortality was high in the second summer of life as
digestive complaints led to the deaths of many recently weaned
children. The life expectancy of adults was limited, with acci-
dents and disease taking a heavy toll.

Clarksville, as one of the three towns (Palmyra, Clarksville,
and Nashville) on the Cumberland River in 1797, was fortunate
in attracting physicians trained in Philadelphia and in Lexing-
ton, Kentucky. As transportation improved needed medical sup-
plies became more readily available.

Newspapers announced the arrival, departure, partner-
ships, and deaths of early physicians. Dr. Maxwell Sharp, who
had been in the area in 1806, moved away, but upon recovery
of his health returned in August of 1810. Dr. R. F. Slaughter
announced plans to practice medicine at his shop adjoining
Messrs. Reynolds and McCarland "on the hill. "On December 15,
1814, Dr. Anthony Foster appealed for payment of accounts,
though he would serve the sick whenever needed. Peter H. Cole
also appealed for payment so that he might buy medicines and
continue his practice.

The Weekly Chronicle of 1818 reported the death of Dr. Sam-
uel A. Kittrell and the available services of Dr. H. Robinson. In
April Dr. Bowling, whose particular interest was children's dis-
eases, and Dr. Brodie were to be found at Maj. Charles Bailey's
Inn. In May they formed a partnership. In July of 1819 the Ga-
zette reported the arrival of Dr. Robert E. Neblett of Virginia, and
in November of that year Dr. Bowling and Dr. Tunstall became
partners. The Tennessee Watchman of November 1819 records the
presence of W. H. Drane, William R. Harmer, Hosea C. Miller,

MONTGOMERY 73

and Josiah Neblett, local physicians. Robert McClure, M.D., died
on September 20, 1823.

Prior to 1823 Dr. Morgan Brown was at Palmyra where his
interests in the iron industry did not deter his serving mankind.
Company physicians were later employed in such districts, with
Dr. Joshua Cobb serving the Cumberland Iron Works which op-
erated three furnaces in Stewart County. Many of the iron in-
dustrialists were from Pennsylvania and their company
physicians were likewise from that region.

As the river trade grew and commercial interests developed,
the inflow of medical professionals increased. The census of
1850 showrs that there were 54 practicing physicians in the
county with ages ranging from 21 to 64 years. Although the ma-
jority were born in Tennessee, several other states are listed as
birth places. There were also four Tennessee-born medical stu-
dents at this time.

The Tennessee State Medical Society, founded January 9,
1830, included among its 154 charter members a number of
physicians from Montgomery County. Among those joining
shortly thereafter were C. M. Banks, Lee Cunningham, J. T.
Dabney, Jeptha Dudley, R.J. McFall, J. Neblett, G. H. Parish, H.
N. Whitaker, and Daniel F. Wright.

Dentistry as a separate profession was late in arriving in the
county. Prior to 1850, Dr. A. M. Gilliam had an office on Wash-
ington Street while Dr. W J. Castner maintained an office on
Franklin Street. Dr. Castner trained a number of excellent prac-
titioners, including Dr. T. E. Cabaniss of New Providence. An-
other dentist in Clarksville in 1858 was Dr. W. H. P.Jones.

The primitive methods of tooth extraction had improved as
well as treatment of gum and tooth ailments. The drawing of a
piece of floss silk or waxed linen between teeth to remove food
particles was practiced. An excellent mouth wash was made of
one fluid ounce each of tincture of myrrh, Peruvian bark, and
gentian root added to one fluid drachm of acqua ammonia and
a half-pint of pure water. This was used with a brush after each
meal. Toothaches were treated with a solution of powdered alum
mixed with nitric ether or gum copal dissolved in chloroform.

74 Tennessee County History Series

Prepared toothpaste and powder were available in drugstores
by 1858.

Medical supplies were part of the general store's stock in the
early days, but by 1836 the drugstore was listed among the taxed
businesses in Clarksville. Perhaps the earliest physician-associ-
ated drug outlet in the city was that of Dr. M. Rowley near the
northwest end of the Square circa 1820. In 1858 there were
three drugstores in town; Thomas & Brothers, McCauley & Bell,
and W. O. Vance. These stores handled a variety of supplies such
as paints, glass, books, and stationery, as well as drugs and med-
icines. W. O. Vance announced in the January 15, 1858, Chronicle
"no one in the store will be allowed to put them [prescriptions]
up but myself." By ringing a bell attached to the front door one
might arouse him "at any hour of the night."

As the Civil War loomed, hundreds of volunteers were
trained in camps throughout the county. Many of these men had
never been exposed to childhood diseases and measles, along
with pneumonia, developed in the camps. The Stewart College
dormitory, Robb Hall, served as a hospital for these patients.
The Female Academy, a larger and better location, was desig-
nated by the state legislature as a Confederate Hospital during
the early days of the war. Dr. W. D. Lyle was administrator. In
January of 1862 when the number of patients rose to 250, Robb
Hall was again pressed into service as a second hospital. Follow-
ing the surrender of Clarksville to Federal forces in February of
1862 the Union wounded and ill were housed in both buildings.

The Montgomery County Medical Society was organized in
January of 1873 with Dr. D. F. Wright as president and Dr. B. W.
Ussery as vice-president. Dr. B. N. Herrings office was used as
a meeting place. Local dentists, H. M. Acree and H. E. Beach,
were members of the Tennessee Dental Association incorpo-
rated in February of 1869. Dr. Beach served as president of the
state association, being elected in 1877 and in 1886, and was ed-
itor of the Archives of Dentistry.

Years passed after the Civil War without a critical need for a
hospital. Clinics were established and some physicians expanded
their office space to accommodate a patient following surgery.

MONTGOMERY

75

^12 IS 82 88 i*I If ^

Dr. R. T. Burt's Home Infirmary, listed on the National Register of
Historic Places.

In December of 1896 Bishop Charles Todd Quintard dedi-
cated the Ross-Brandau Sanitarium in the Ross home in New
Providence. Operating tables and apparatus had been received
from New York. Mr. and Mrs. Frank Fee, graduate nurses from
Battle Creek, Michigan, opened a hospital in their home in
Clarksville in February of 1912.

Dr. Robert T. Burt, son of an ex-slave, arrived in Clarksville
from Mississippi in 1902. He purchased property on Current
Street in 1904 and opened the Home Infirmary, a hospital for
blacks. The Home Infirmary remained in continuous service un-
til 1947 when Dr. Burt fell twice, breaking both hips. His death
occurred in 1954.

The need for adequate hospital facilities in Clarksville grew.
The Turnley home on Madison Street was purchased for this
purpose in January 1916 and the Barbara-Louise Hospital
opened in February of 1916 under the direction of Claire
Brooks as supervisor of nurses. Originally named for Brooks'

76 Tennessee County History Series

mother, the hospital was renamed the Clarksville Hospital in
May of 1918. In May of 1917 Irene Johnson became the super-
visor of nursing and promoted a training school for five nurses
in the autumn of 1917. In 1919 the former M. C. Northington
residence, next door to the hospital, was purchased as a nurses'
home. Affiliation with St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville led to
the R. N. degree for local trainees. A Ladies Auxiliary with Mrs.
J. E. Elder as president was organized at this time. The annual
report of May 1919 indicates that a total of 373 cases, the ma-
jority of them surgical, were handled at the hospital.

A need for expanded services and facilities led to the pur-
chase of property on North Second Street in the mid- 1920s. Ex-
tensive remodeling was necessary in the late 1920s, and the
Edith Pettus Memorial Nurses Home was constructed in 1929.

In 1954 a final move was made to the Clarksville Memorial
Hospital on Nashville Highway near the eastern edge of the city.
The structure of 1954 has greatly changed, providing appro-
priate and adequate services in a four-story central building with
attached auxiliary units. The 239-bed hospital is staffed by a
professional corps of surgeons, nurses, and attendants who pro-
vide the public of several nearby counties with skilled assistance
at all times. Professional care is available from specialists in every
field, with scores of surgeons, physicians, dentists, and those in
allied health care professions able to meet every need and
emergency.

The hospital at nearby Fort Campbell, Kentucky, serves ac-
tive duty military personnel and retired military families. The
recently constructed Florence A. Blanchfield Army Community
Hospital at Fort Campbell was dedicated September 17, 1982.
This $43 million hospital is the first Army care facility named in
honor of a woman. The late Colonel Blanchfield served as chief
of Army Nurses Corps from 1943 until 1947 and was the first
woman to receive a regular U. S. Army commission. This well-
staffed four-building hospital complex provides the best health
care possible. Helicopters from Fort Campbell transport local
civilian patients to hospitals in Nashville or elsewhere when spec-
ialized emergency treatment is required.

MONTGOMERY 77

The Harriet Cohn Mental Health Center in Clarksville
serves the mental health needs of seven counties: Montgomery,
Dickson, Cheatham, Houston, Humphreys, Robertson, and
Stewart. Services include in-patient treatment at Clarksville
Memorial Hospital and Middle Tennessee Mental Health Insti-
tute; out-patient treatment for individuals, groups, and families;
around-the-clock emergency services for crisis situations; and a
partial hospitalization program for both crisis and chronic
clients. Consultation and education services are also provided
for private and community agencies, schools, law enforcement
agencies, churches, industry, and public health departments.
The staff includes board-eligible psychiatrists, licensed psychol-
ogists, psychiatric social workers, a play therapist, alcohol and
drug counselors, marriage counselors, among others.

All residents of Montgomery and the surrounding counties
have access to a public health center. A mobile clinic visits out-
lying areas of the county and a public health nurse visits area
schools. Services include chronic illness screening and referral,
immunizations, family planning, nutritional counseling, and
child abuse prevention. The Cumberland Dialysis Center, with
a current capacity to assist 24 patients, can also be found in
Clarksville.

Religion

The large family Bibles brought from Virginia or the Caro-
linas by the frontier settlers were sources of inspiration and con-
solation. Parents read from the pages and offered moral
training for the young. Memorized verses were a basic part of
education, teaching children to accept with faith and fortitude
the adversities of the frontier. A philosophy of faith in God and
the interdependence of men led to the fulfillment of the pre-
cepts that one is his brother s keeper and that one should do unto
others as he would be done by.

As early as January 19, 1820, the American Bible Society an-
nounced in the Clarksville Gazette that upon application to
Thomas Wallace of Lexington, Kentucky, the 69^ edition of the

78 Tennessee County History Series

Bible was available to local societies. Not until 1856 were Bibles
published south of the Ohio River and these were printed in
Nashville.

From the primitive days when baptismal and burial services
were delayed until a traveling minister appeared and marriages
were performed in civil ceremony by justices of the peace, there
was slow progress in obtaining the permanent services of a min-
ister in the community. Compensation for such services was
quite limited, due to the frugality of the listeners and a reluct-
ance to encourage the pastor s dependence upon the generosity
of his audience. Ministers were expected to earn their living by
other means of daily toil.

Ministers were counselors and consolers. People in need
sought advice and counsel and those beset by doubt and fear
required the ministers patience and understanding. So it was
that neighbors congregated to hear Elder Reuben Ross explain
the strange murmurings within the earth which quivered and
trembled during months of earthquakes in 1811-1812. It was a
time of fear as a great comet was observed and the northern
lights were especially active.

Early newspapers of 1819 announced the planned arrival of
visiting ministers. Delayed funeral services, weeks and months
after burials, were times for community gatherings of family and
neighbors. A Methodist circuit rider, the Reverend Jeremiah W.
Cullom, journeyed along his circuit in Montgomery and adjoin-
ing counties. His records of delayed baptismals and funeral serv-
ices provide an insight into the significance of each day's journey.

In the rural communities the Methodist and Baptist
churches found many adherents, and their conferences and
meetings of associated leaders led to a concentration of common
interests and the spread of these congregations. Slaves attending
with their masters or holding separate services on the farm
likewise adopted the precepts of these church groups.

Early records and church minutes graphically depict reli-
gious activities in rural areas. More formal congregations were
organized early in the 1800s within the town of Clarksville.
These meetings were generally held in the courthouse or in resi-

MONTGOMERY 79

dences. However, the Methodist quarterly meeting, held at the
Methodist Meeting House on the hillside below the public
square in May of 1823, indicates a building suitable for worship
had been erected in the town.

Individuals of the Methodist denomination moved into the
area at an early date. From an organization known as a "society"
prior to 1800 they progressed to the class of "circuit" and thence
to the designation of Clarksville Station.

The early log meeting house became inadequate to house the
worshippers who built the first brick church in Clarksville at the
corner of Main and Poplar (now Fourth) streets in 1831. The
first sermon was preached there in 1833 by Dr. John B. Mc-
Ferrin, a minister of renown. Enjoying a great growth in mem-
bership, the Methodists moved into two subsequent buildings. A
structure at Franklin and Fifth streets was occupied in 1842 and
the current house of worship at the corner of Hiter and Madison
was their third brick meeting place.

The Methodist congregation laid the cornerstone for the
present $40,000 structure on September 8, 1882. Though
Gothic in design, it is ornamented by Corinthian columns at the
sides of the entrance and by tower windows. Brickwork, com-
plemented by cut stone, leads to the massive roof supported by
iron bridge trusses manufactured by the Pittsburgh Bridge
Company. Two towers, 145 and 120 feet respectively, soar above.

The floor of the main auditorium is slightly elevated at the
rear providing comfort to the 500 to 600 communicants assem-
bled for services. This building, like the Presbyterian and Baptist
houses of worship, has a gallery to accommodate overflow au-
diences. A chapel and an educational building have been added
to the original plan to serve the ever growing needs of today's
congregation.

Among Baptist churches in the area, the Spring Creek con-
gregation, founded in 1808, has the longest continuous history.
A simple log house served early worshippers. The following year
a call was given to Elder Reuben Ross, who accepted the invi-
tation in 1810 and served for about 29 years, also meeting with
other congegations from time to time. His visits to Clarksville

80 Tennessee County History Series

consisted of preaching at the courthouse and in private homes.
By 1811 the Baptists in Clarksville had sufficient numbers to or-
ganize a church and no longer be a branch of the Spring Creek
church. Elder Ross visited the Clarksville congregation on a
monthly schedule.

A building for worship which served for many years was
erected at the northwest corner of Commerce and Third streets.
Meetings were restricted and regulated to conform to the au-
thority of Federal forces during the years of occupation, 1862—
1865. In 1867 a new location was found and a stately building
with a central spire was built at Madison and Fifth streets. This
building served the worshippers until it was razed and the pres-
ent building of Alabama stone was dedicated December 20,
1917. With additional expansion, the facilities serve an ever-
growing membership.

The first Presbyterian church, organized by 14 people from
different Presbyterian churches in other communities, dates
from May 25, 1822. The Reverend Lyman Whitney of the Con-
necticut Missionary Society acted as moderator for the meeting.
Continuing to meet in the courthouse, private homes, and the
Masonic Hall, the congregation grew.

The first church was constructed at the northwest corner of
Third and Main streets in 1839-1840 and continued to serve
until plans were made for a more impressive building to be con-
structed on the same site. The cornerstone of the present build-
ing was laid May 19, 1876, and the $43,000 structure was
dedicated May 26, 1878 by the Reverend B. M. Palmer, D.D., of
New Orleans.

Constructed of pressed brick with stone trim, it was heated
by a furnace and supplied with gas for lighting. Power for the
$3500 organ, designed by the local organist Professor Caldwell,
was furnished by water motor. The beautifully toned 2790-
pound bell was manufactured by Messrs. Vandusen & Company.
Over the years the congregation has made additional facilities
available for the chapel and educational services.

The first Episcopal service known to have been held in
Clarksville was conducted in the courthouse on the public

MONTGOMERY 81

square. In 1828 the Right Reverend William Meade, recently ap-
pointed Bishop of Virginia, preached to assembled worshipers
while on a missionary tour of Kentucky and Tennessee. The con-
gregation was formally organized on June 21, 1832, in the Ma-
sonic Temple on Franklin Street.

After purchasing property on Franklin Street, adjoining the
Masonic Hall, the foundation of a church was laid September
1 1, 1834. Great was the distress of the congregation when the
walls of the new church, yet unfinished, were declared unsafe
and the structure dismantled. A second building on the same site
was consecrated June 23, 1838. This served the parishioners un-
til final services were held on April 15, 1875.

The third house of worship at the site cost approximately
$40,000. It was built of native limestone from quarries down
river from New Providence. The soft grey, ranged rock masonry
was trimmed with stone from Bowling Green, Kentucky, fifty
miles distant. Prior to the consecration of the church on Decem-
ber 1, 1881, interest turned to the purchase of an organ dis-
played at the Philadelphia Worlds Fair, and shortly thereafter,
the organ was installed in the local church. Pipe organs supplied
music for each of the churches designed at the time.

The first Roman Catholic Mass was held in a private home
in 1839 when Father Aloysius Orengo, O.R, visited the Clarks-
ville community. A while later a lot was purchased on the south
side of Washington Street (now College) east of Fourth. The cor-
nerstone was laid on June 14, 1844, and the building dedicated
December 8, 1844, by the Most Reverend Richard Pius Miles,
D.D., of Nashville. The first resident priest was the Reverend
Father Schacht.

Plans were made for the construction of a new building on
Franklin Street west of Seventh Street. Cornerstone laying cer-
emonies were on August 12, 1880, and within the year the
Gothic structure with central spire, designed by the architect
C. G. Rosenplanter of Louisville, was completed. This was the
first of several buildings in Clarksville in the early 1880s to be
designed by Rosenplanter. The building was of brick but in later

82 Tennessee County History Series

years it was surfaced with stucco or plaster marked in rectangles
to resemble stone.

Unlike the dominant church bodies, whose roots were in the
European tradition, there were two congregations which were
born on the American frontier One of these, the Cumberland
Presbyterian Church was organized in 1810 and soon accepted
as part of the Anderson Presbytery. The existing McAdoo Pres-
byterian Church had been an Old School Presbyterian Church
as early as 1807-1808.

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Clarksville did not,
however, build its own house of worship. When the Methodist
church building at the corner of Main and Poplar (Fourth)
streets was for sale in 1841 the congregation chose to purchase
that building. When the Methodist church on Franklin Street
was sold in the 1880s, the Cumberland Presbyterians again fol-
lowed them into that building. The congregation continued to
worship at this location until 1958 when the building was sold
and a new building of modern style with Gothic aspects was in-
corporated with a former residence at the corner of Golf Club
Lane and Madison Street

The First Christian Church was the other denomination
born on the frontier. It was organized in December of 1842 by
12 individuals who resolved to take the Bible as their only rule
of faith and practice. Congregations with this concept were
growing in numbers throughout Kentucky and Tennessee at this
time. The local group met every Lord's day for worship at the
courthouse, the Masonic Hall, or in the home of a member. The
congregation was visited occasionally by outstanding preachers
and evangelists, one of whom was Alexander Campbell, leader
of the Restoration movement in the nineteenth century.

In 1 849 the lot at the northeast corner of Third and Madison
streets was purchased and a brick church was constructed in
1851. During the Federal occupation of the city a boys' school
was conducted there by Mr. Blain. A lot at the corner of Academy
Avenue and Madison Street was bought at an early date for the
construction of a larger building to meet the needs of an ex-
panding congregation. The cornerstone of this structure was

MONTGOMERY 83

laid on October 10, 1921, and the building has been occupied
ever since. Additional areas have been provided for educational
facilities.

Following the Civil War various denominations sponsored
units for black believers. Although some individuals maintained
membership in the congregation to which they had previously
belonged, others chose to depart.

The Presbyterian Mission of 1884, first located on Main
Street, was transferred to Poston Street, then to Spring Street,
and thereafter abandoned for lack of interest. A church on Main
Street, sponsored by the First Christian Church, followed a simi-
lar pattern. This property in later years was sold to the Church
of Christ; however, it has long since been razed.

More successful were the churches established by ex-slaves,
their friends, and contributing organizations. As was true in the
rural areas the Methodist and Baptist faiths were the most ea-
gerly accepted, many of their members having moved into town
from their rural homes.

On Franklin Street three Methodist congregations were es-
tablished: St. Peters A.M.E. (1866), Wesley's Chapel C.M.E.
(1867), and St. Paul's A.M.E. (1868). African Methodist Episco-
pal (A.M.E.) and Colored Methodist Episcopal (C.M.E.) differ
somewhat from each other in their organization. Wesley's Chapel
no longer has services at the Franklin Street site as the building
was badly damaged in a storm in 1976 and the congregation later
purchased property from another congregation on Washington
Street. St. Peter's church follows the architectural pattern of the
1880s, with a spire, bell tower, and at one time an organ which
was pumped by manpower.

The Baptist congregations organized shortly after the Civil
War were St. John's (1870), Fifth Ward (1871), and Mt. Olive
(1889). As needs have dictated, some changes in locations have
occurred, while other buildings have been expanded, and ad-
ditional congregations have located at different sites within the
city. In many instances the former name has been maintained
and the traditions and heritage cherished. Throughout the
county, these two denominations, Methodist and Baptist, have

84 Tennessee County History Series

flourished with active congregations concerned with community
affairs.

During the last century, many new denominations and affil-
iations have entered the county. As branches of the older estab-
lished congregations continued to extend into new territories,
the evidence of a religious community is confirmed.

Community Service

Church responsibility in the early days was not directed to-
ward the care of the indigent, widows, and orphans. These peo-
ple were wards of the court, which provided for and protected
them. Executors of wills were responsible for the appropriation
of funds to meet the needs of the widow and minor children.
Guardianship of such children was also a function of the court
with such guardianship being assigned to the mother, other rel-
atives, or friends. Administrators of estates were involved in sim-
ilar decision making. Fatherless minors were frequently
assigned to different responsible citizens as apprentices. This
often caused children to be placed in separate homes.

Such was the case of the Murphy children in the early part
of the nineteenth century. Patrick Murphy, six years old, was
apprenticed to Hugh McClure until he became 21 years of age.
McClure contracted to provide for the youths welfare and "to
instruct said apprentice in the Art, Trade, and Myestry (sic) of
a Merchant." His instruction was to include reading, writing, and
arithmetic "as far as the rule of practice." William Murphy was
apprenticed to George Oldham as a farmer. His arithmetic was
to be to "the rule of three" while Margaret Murphy, apprenticed
to Thomas Keefe until the age of 18, was to be trained as a seam-
stress. Such apprentices would, with proper training, become
self-supporting.

Care was provided the aged and indigent by the courts pay-
ing board and lodging expenses to caretakers in their homes. In
later years, the "poor farm" became a haven for such unfortun-
ate persons along with the insane.

More humane treatment is now provided through proper

MONTGOMERY 85

housing and care in the County Home with county funds ap-
plied toward the welfare of the blind and others in need. Sup-
plemented with other government appropriations, such
modern care provides for these less fortunate citizens.

Fraternal orders have also served the needs of the families
of their deceased members. Among the early organizations were
the Masonic Order and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

The Masonic Order in Clarksville was first chartered as Free
and Accepted Masons #89 in 1819. The Tannyhill Lodge #1 16
was organized in 1846 and the Clarksville Council #4 was es-
tablished in October 1847. During this period the Royal Arch
Masons #3 was activated. As the years passed additional Masonic
activities included the Eastern Star Chapter #202 which first met
December 2, 1919, and the Shrine Club which has been active
since its first dinner meeting in June of 1923.

The Pythagoras Lodge, I.O.O.F, was chartered January 28,
1 847, the Young Encampment on March 22, 1 869, and the Whit-
field Rebecka Lodge on October 17, 1894. These and other
groups have provided philanthropic services through the years.

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows, through establish-
ment of a home for widows and orphans in October of 1899,
had a considerable impact upon the local community. The Py-
thagoras Lodge purchased the Stephen Pettus home in New
Providence and remodeled it to meet the needs of the institu-
tion. Within a few years additional property bought from John
K. Smith was converted into a hospital building, while a school
building was constructed and more dormitory space was pro-
vided. Farming, gardening, and dairying occupied the time and
skills of the young people. Educational facilities were provided
until the high school years when students were transported to
classes at Clarksville High school.

Religious needs were met through services at local churches
in the New Providence and Clarksville area. Many older resi-
dents of the home lived to their last days in this environment of
love and concern and were interred in the Home Cemetery. The
property was sold in 1952 when there was no longer a need for

86 Tennessee County History Series

such an institution, but the Home Cemetery is cared for by local
lodge members.

Additional services have been rendered in chosen fields by
other fraternal organizations. Among these in more recent years
are the Knights of Pythias, Loyal Order of Moose, Lions Club,
and Woodmen of the World. Many local services are supported
by the United Givers Fund, geared to meet current local needs.
Prompted by a sense of Christian obligation to the living and
the dead, the Tennessee Orphan Society was incorporated
March 11, 1867, by six concerned women. Eight men, however,
were sought as trustees to purchase a large mansion for the or-
phanage. For $25,000 they purchased the Thomas Munford
mansion, high above the Red River on the Russellville Pike. The
society was organized to care for and to educate the children of
Confederate soldiers "that fell fighting for the cause that was so
dear to us all." The spacious residence became home for or-
phaned children and a few mothers who were employed for
services needed in the daily operation.

Here the orphaned children were cared for by volunteer
subscriptions from more than a score of auxiliary societies and
by concerned individuals from New York to California. Dr. D. F.
Wright donated his professional services, merchants supplied
food and clothing, and produce came from friends in the coun-
try. Moral and religious training was considered as important as
education. In the course of a few years, until the growth of the
young people ended the need for such an institution, almost a
hundred children were sheltered from destitution and disease.

When the orphanage was no longer needed, the property
was sold, but the funds reverted to the state through a legal mis-
adventure. The women were distressed as they had planned to
use the funds for a lasting monument to the Confederate dead.

Undiscouraged, they began a drive for funds. Proceeds from
all kinds of benefits and sales were supplemented by donations
from Forbes' Bivouac, an association of Confederate veterans
(1888), by the Hook and Ladder Company of fire fighters, and
by concerned individuals. Through the combined efforts of la-
dies, gentlemen, veterans, and youth the monument funds were

MONTGOMERY 87

made available. The Memorial Association, organized in 1889,
let the contract for the $75,000 monument in 1892, and the un-
veling was October 25, 1893.

The Vermont granite monument is topped with a bronze fig-
ure of a Confederate infantryman. Two granite figures below
represent the cavalryman and the artilleryman. Each figure was
modeled from a photograph of a Clarksville volunteer: infan-
tryman W. R. Bringhurst, cavalryman Clay Stacker, and artillery-
man Charles H. Bailey. This enduring memorial to the
Confederate dead stands in its gloried height in Greenwood
Cemetery at Clarksville.

Other Confederate dead were not neglected or forgotten.
Shortly after the war, the remains of unidentified soldiers were
found near the Female Academy on Madison Street and re-
moved for burial in the City Cemetery (Riverview Cemetery).
On February 12, 1897, the cave-in of an embankment south of
the railroad at the rear of the academy revealed bones of addi-
tional unidentified soldiers. These men had apparently died in
the earlier academy building, used in 1861-1862 as the Confed-
erate hospital and later by the Federals. Whether they were Fed-
eral or Confederate, it mattered not, for all deserved Christian
burial. These remains were reinterred with their comrades, and
the site was marked by a monument erected by Forbes Bivouac
Confederate Veterans.

Christian burial was held in many rural sections in Gods acre
near the local church. Family cemeteries were established on
many farms where care was devoted to maintaining the grounds.
Slabs of limestone marked some graves, carved markers others,
while some bore no identification.

In Clarksville prior to 1805 burials were in a plot held by
James Huling. This was the land in which Valentine Sevier was
buried following his death on February 23, 1800. At that time
the Sevier family owned the property. On June 7, 1805, the deed
was transferred for $12 to James Elder and Hugh Bell and the
one acre "about 600 yards from the junction of Red River and
Cumberland... known as the public Burying Ground adjacent
to the town of Clarksville" was permanently established as

88 Tennessee County History Series

the City Cemetery. As the years passed the cemetery expanded,
allowing for burials to the present day.

The old Trinity Church Cemetery, four acres between
Franklin and Main streets opposite Tenth Street, had been kept
in good condition following its purchase in 1840 from John H.
Poston. Once all lots were sold and no further income was avail-
able expansion was impossible, as buildings had been erected on
adjoining properties. During the war, fencing and many mo-
muments and headstones were destroyed or defaced. As a result,
Trinity Church arranged with George Cook to move all remains
and existing stones to Greenwood Cemetery, deeding the
cleared land to Mr. Cook for his services.

Greenwood Cemetery Company was incorporated January

28, 1869, by seven concerned citizens. Some years later, on July

29, 1872, land on Old Charlotte Pike was purchased and Ben-
jamin Groves of Louisville was employed to lay off avenues and
cross-alleys for easy access to all lots. The beauty of the natural
plantings and landscaping is a tribute to his skill. On June 21,
1872, dedication services were held. Many persons, buried in
older, unfit burial grounds were moved to the new cemetery of-
fering spacious lots and perpetual care. Near Greenwood are
burial grounds for blacks. While cemeteries are no longer seg-
regated along racial lines, most citizens prefer burial in their tra-
ditional locations.

Memorial stones in the older cemeteries are often works of
art depicting many changes over almost two hundred years.
Among the older graves are flat stones covering the entire grave,
which permitted lengthy biographical sketches and tributes to
the deceased. Simple stones without inscription, elaborately
carved Italian marble in the Victorian taste, and heavy granite
markers rise above the sod, while ground-level markers have
been used most recently.

Personalities in Arts and Sports

Individuals, as well as events, leave an impression upon a
community. Such an impression may reach far beyond the com-

MONTGOMERY 89

munity itself, influencing the fields of music, literature, and the
dramatic and creative arts.

Musicians, including concert pianists, harpists, violinists, and
vocalists, connected with Montgomery County have received
wide acclaim. Two distinguished blacks have contributed to mu-
sic on an international scale. Born and reared in Clarksville,
Clarence Cameron White (1879-1960) won fame as a violinist
and composer. One of his best known compositions is "Nobody
Knows the Trouble I've Seen." Roland Hayes (1887-1976),
tenor, gave his first concert in Clarksville while he worked in a
tobacco factory to supplement his tuition fees at Fisk University,
Nashville. This performance at St. John's Church was arranged
by Dr. Robert T. Burt and others. Admission was 10# and 15c\
One of the first blacks to achieve international stardom, Hayes
gave command performances in England and Spain in 1916,
1921, and 1 925. He also toured the world extensively during his
career.

The German-born organist, Ferdinand Lust, composed an
accompaniment for "My Rosary." A tribute to Miss Rosa Whit-
field, a Clarksville belle, his efforts were rewarded when she sang
his original number at the Monday Evening Music Club in Jan-
uary of 1900. Other composers in the early an mid- 1900s in-
clude Bryan Dority who composed the "Alma Mater" for the
local high school. Beasley Smith and Francis Craig were very
active in the era of the big dance bands as composers and band
leaders. Their contributions in the field of popular music were
significant.

Other citizens expressed themselves in oratory or in verse,
with educational institutions encouraging such skills. Verse of
varied worth was found in newspapers and in book form. One
volume, in particular, is truly local in character. Poems Dear to the
Heart was an outpouring of sentiment by Mrs. S. E. W Pitt. This
little volume of verse illuminates persons, places, and events of
the early twentieth century in Clarksville.

Much earlier, in 1865, the immortal lines of "The Conquered
Banner" were written by Father Abram Ryan while boarding in
the Conroy home on Commerce Street. Correspondence be-

90 Tennessee County History Series

tween members of the Conroy family and Father Ryan and other
memorabilia of that friendship are treasured by members of the
Conroy family.

R. W. Thomas, journalist and publisher, was the author of
the novel The Young Colonel, published in 1860. This historical
work set in England in the reign of Edward II reflected local
enthusiasm for the popular works of Sir Walter Scott and other
British writers.

In succeeding years, other local authors found wider distri-
bution for their labors. Among these was Judge C. W. Tyler, au-
thor of The Scout (1912), a tribute to the Confederate hero Sam
Davis, and other works. Martha McCulloch Williams, a prolific
writer of serials and short stories, and Hallie Ermine Rives, ac-
claimed by foreign nations for her sympathetic interpretation of
their cultural patterns, were contemporaries of "Dorothy Dix"
(Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer, 1861-1951), noted columnist.
Also during the twentieth century, the works of Carolyn Gor-
don, Evelyn Scott ("Elsie Dunn"), Allen Tate, and Robert Penn
Warren have attracted an international following. Symbolism
and philosophy vie with plot and structure in these more recent
literary productions.

Evelyn Scott, born in Clarksville in 1893, produced novels,
verse, and juvenile works. Some of her more well known books
include The Narrow House (1921), The Golden Door (1927), and
The Wave (1929).

Carolyn Gordon, born in 1895 in Todd County, Kentucky,
moved to Clarksville at an early age. Her father conducted a
classical school in Clarksville where she received her early edu-
cation. A Guggenheim Fellow, Gordon married Allen Tate, poet
and critic. Two of Gordon's critically acclaimed novels include
Penhally (1931) and None Shall Look Back (1937), which deals with
Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Allen Tate (1899-1979) helped found "The Fugitives," a
group of Southern writers and political theorists who hoped to
rescue the American South from industrialization and to recon-
stitute its culture. Tate's works include biographies of "Stonewall"
Jackson, Jefferson Davis, and Robert E. Lee. He is best known

MONTGOMERY 91

for his poetry, including "Ode to the Confederate Dead" (1928),
and his criticism, especially Reactionary Essays ( 1 936), On the Limits
of Poetry (1948), and The Forlorn Demon (1953). For much of their
married life Gordon and Tate lived on a farm overlooking the
Cumberland River

Robert Penn Warren was born in Todd County, Kentucky, in
1905. He commuted by train from his home in Guthrie, Ken-
tucky, to Clarksville to attend high school until he enrolled at
Vanderbilt University in 1921 when he was 16. By far the best
known of Warrens works is All the Kings Men (1946), the story
of Louisiana's Huey Long. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in
1947 and a move of the work later won an Academy Award. In
addition to writing, Warren edited both the Southern Review and
Kenyon Review.

Textbooks and history, biography and autobiography, phi-
losophy and religious material, factual prose and juvenile fic-
tion, all bear witness to the proficiency of local writers. The
greatest contribution to local folklore were volumes dealing with
the Bell Witch, written by Martin V. Ingram and by Harriet Parks
Miller.

Among local dramatists was the Reverend Dr. Arthur Whit-
tle, author of the 1934 pageant "Through the Mist of the Years,"
commemorating the sesquicentennial of the founding of Clarks-
ville in 1784. This multiple-act pageant was performed on an
outdoor stage 60 feet long and 40 feet deep with a 30-foot open-
ing. It had a cast of scores of persons and involved many more
citizens in the staging and other allied activities.

Some students educated at Southwestern Presbyterian Uni-
versity and at Austin Peay State University have proved to be
prolific writers, contributing to professional journals as well as
publishing material in other forms. Scores of volumes of prose
and poetry, as well as books of literary value and of scientific
content have been the work of faculty members of the two uni-
versities. This demonstration of talent reflects the nature of the
individual and an environment conducive to creative work.

Local dramatic talent has been rewarded by stage, screen,
radio, and television contracts. From the days of the silent mov-

92 Tennessee County History Series

ies to the present many individuals have contributed to this art.
Among such talented persons were Jack Frost; Dorothy Jordan;
Iris Mabry; Gilbert Stalls; Frank Sutton; Charles Boillin Watts,
the veteran and versatile character actor of stage and screen;
Sara Wilee; and Helen Wood.

Jack Brickhouse, noted sports announcer, has continued in
that capacity for years in radio and television. He was a long-
time fixture in the Chicago Cubs pressbox. Other men from this
area are currently employed in the television industry in ever-
growing numbers and activities.

The visual arts of painting and sculpture have been repre-
sented by several local persons. Robert Loftin Newman, born in
Virginia, moved with members of his family to Clarksville in
1839. His talent in the field of oil painting was recognized at an
early age. Studies in this country and abroad led to a quality of
work currently displayed in many art galleries throughout the
nation. Of international recognition, his final years were spent
in New York where he died in 1912. His remains were cremated
and burial followed in Riverview Cemetery in Clarksville. John
Russell Cross (1899-1964), a native of Clarskville and a nation-
ally recognized editorial cartoonist, is buried in Greenwood
Cemetery, Clarksville.

A professional illustrator of juvenile books and related items
in current production is Bettye Beach also a native of Clarksville.
A number of local citizens, some on the staff of Austin Peay State
University, are well known as artists in many fields. They include
muralists, sculptors, and artists in oil painting and other media.

While creativity is displayed in many forms of art, the same
discipline is evident in those who prefer to enter into the arena
of sports. Such persons are known in local sports circles as well
as in the national and international realms.

Wilma Rudolph, born in 1940 in St. Bethlehem, won a
bronze medal in the Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, in 1956.
Becoming the outstanding woman in track competition in the
1960 Rome Olympics, she won three gold medals, the first
American woman to do so. The 20th of 22 children, she suffered

MONTGOMERY

93

'*™

Wilma Rudolph as a Burt High School student-athlete.

94 Tennessee County History Series

from polio and was forced to walk with a leg brace until the age
of nine.

Men in baseball and golf have also achieved national recog-
nition. Horace Lisenbee, born in 1898 in Clarksville, was a major
league pitcher for eight seasons in the 1920s and 1930s. He
played for teams in Washington, Boston, Philadelphia, and Cin-
cinnati. Mason Rudolph of Clarksville became a professional
golfer in 1958. Born in 1934, Rudolph was voted Golf Digest
Rookie of the Year in 1959. He won a number of major tour-
naments in the 1960s and 1970s.

Properties on the National Register of Historic Places

The deeds of men are often remembered by the written
word; however, the social and economic development of a com-
munity may be revealed in the structures which remain for gen-
erations to view. The Historic Sites Act of 1935 and the National
Historic Preservation Act of 1966 codified the concept of an ac-
tive register of historic American properties. Broad in scope, the
properties on the Register represent all facets of American his-
tory and present-day life. Sites are considered for their histori-
cal, architectural, and/or cultural merits. Recognition is
obtained through detailed reports regarding the architectural
and historic significance of the site. Supervised by the National
Parks Service of the Department of the Interior, these properties
warrant preservation by their current owners. Montgomery
County is blessed with many such recognized structures. They
include residences, business houses, municipal buildings, and
churches. Within the city limits of Clarksville are a number of
individual properties listed on the Register. In addition to the
individual sites there are three Districts representing numerous
structures and a group of five architecturally important
churches.

The area of the Cumberland and Red rivers was subjected
to Indian attack during the first years of settlement. The popu-
lation was generally scattered into single family habitations, with
the exception of small concentrations at Clarksville and in a sec-

MONTGOMERY 95

tion near the entry of Sulphur Fork into the Red River. Mont-
gomery County cannot vie with the handsome and massive
structures of Sumner County through which many of her early
families travelled on foot or in covered wagons. These early ar-
rivals settled along the accepted trails leading to French Lick, an
early name for Nashville. Nor can the county display the hand-
some homes and early churches of Williamson County, which
was settled by families migrating from North Carolina, bringing
with them their wealth and slaves, in the era following statehood.
However, the structures in Montgomery County listed on the
National Register are significant, individually and collectively,
due to their historic or architectural nature.

Sevier Station

The oldest structure in the county on the Register is the Val-
entine Sevier Station, a two-room limestone structure, circa
1792. Overall the building measures 15 by 32 feet, the rooms
being 15 by 15 and 17 by 15 feet respectively. Openings into the
rooms are limited to two small windows in the larger room and
one exterior door to each room. There is no doorway between
the two rooms, apparently providing a measure of security badly
needed by the occupants. The fireplace and chimney in the
larger room are of rock. Across the opening of the fireplace, said
to have been wide enough to roast a deer, was a huge log lintel.
Certainly the fire was used for all cooking, as well as for warmth
and light.

This structure provided a place of refuge for some members
of the Sevier family during a Creek Indian attack on November
11,1 794, that claimed six members of the family. Located in the
New Providence section of Clarksville, a highway marker at the
intersection of Walker Street and Highway 4 1 A indicates this his-
toric site which was added to the Register May 8, 1971. A two-
story frame house was built about 1820 in front of the stone
structure with a space between. It is architecturally significant
due to the lack of a ridge pole to hold the intersecting rafters
and for the mud packed between the outer and inner walls of
the building for insulation.

96 Tennessee County History Series

Fort Defiance

A quarter of a mile beyond the end of Walker Street are the
1861-1862 breastworks of Fort Defiance. The site, officially
listed as Fort Defiance (CSA)/Fort Bruce (USA), was placed on
the National Register on November 2, 1982. The breastworks
are no longer deep enough to protect a person. The site has
fallen victim to the ravages of erosion and time which have
dimmed the contours of the laboriously hand-dug and
mounded trenches.

The site, atop the 150-foot high bluff overlooking the con-
fluence of the Red and Cumberland rivers, had been chosen to
protect the town of Clarksville from land forces as well as from
a river attack. The hillside guarded the road leading to the
nearby bridge over the Red River. The rapid deployment of the
Federal Navy following the Confederate surrender at Fort
Donelson on February 16, 1862, led to the abandonment of the
inadequate Fort Defiance. The Federal flag was raised over the
fort on February 19 and the name changed to Fort Bruce in
recognition of the Federal officer in charge, Colonel S. D. Bruce.

Smith Home

Walker Street ends at A Street, which in turn leads to the right
ending at Beech Street. At this point one observes the rear of a
large brick residence constructed about 1855 by William Cosby
Smith, a prominent tobacconist in the area.

This two-story Tennessee vernacular home is constructed of
brick and both the foundation and main walls are laid in com-
mon bond. The original rectangular house has chimneys built
into the north and south walls. An earlier detached kitchen has
been attached to the main house by an additional room, creating
an L-shaped extension to the east. A prominent two-story portico
dominates the entrance area with an elevated porch providing
access to the main doorway. The double-leaf paneled doors of
the main entrance are outlined with sidelights and a headlight.

Significant architectural details justify the inclusion of this
structure on the Register. Historically, the building is repre-
sentative of homes constructed by enterprising citizens such as

MONTGOMERY 97

W. C. Smith, who was born in Virginia. After coming to Tennes-
see, he and his brothers established a wholesale tobacco and
shipping enterprise. Their warehouses were located at Trices'
Landing on the Cumberland, in view of the residence, and on
the nearby Red River. The export trade in this commodity was
so extensive that the brothers maintained a second office in New
Orleans for this phase of the business. This home was added to
the National Register on August 22, 1977.

Ringgold Sites

Three significant sites on the Register are in the vicinity of
Ringgold near the Kentucky-Tennessee border. The Old Post
House, added to the Register on March 8, 1978, is located in the
median between the north and southbound lanes of US 41 A, less
than half a mile from the Kentucky-Tennessee border. It is the
only known extant stagecoach stop in the north central part of
Tennessee and probably one of only a few surviving structures
of this type in the state.

In the early 1 830s and for decades thereafter stage lines were
the only means of cross-country travel. Certain routes were des-
ignated by Congress as Post Roads and authorized to transport
mail as well as passengers. The Old Post House, located halfway
between Clarksville, Tennessee, and Hopkinsville, Kentucky,
served a rich argricultural area, as well as nearby communities
where several grist and flour mills operated along the many
streams.

The rectangular story-and-a-half brick building has a single
room; however, an attic and a full basement contribute addi-
tional space. The east elevation faces the early Clarksville-Hop-
kinsville Road and the brick here is laid in Flemish bond. Brick
in the other elevations is laid in common bond. Only one chim-
ney, at the north end, serves the building.

The Ringgold Mill complex, comprised of several buildings,
is located a few miles south of the Old Post House on the south
bank of Little West Fork Creek. The complex includes a mill,
grain elevator, warehouse, and corn-sheller house. Initially the
mill was operated by water power supplied by a creek im-

98 Tennessee County History Series

Ringgold Mill

pounded behind an 1850 limestone dam. Irish immigrant stone-
masons constructed the dam, which is approximately 100 feet
long and anchored on the north by a rock cliff. It continues to
contain the waters of the creek even today.

The Ringgold Mill building was constructed in 1874 on a
coursed limestone foundation built for an earlier pre-Civil War
mill. This foundation contains a full basement that is supported
by stone piers on the exposed north elevation. The upper three
and a half stories of the mill are of frame construction. The mill
contains equipment necessary for the processing of grain into
flour, meal, and stockfeed. In fertile northern Montgomery
County wheat and corn have long been the source of food for
man and beast. The mill is still operational although the business
closed on a regular basis in 1973. It was operated for a few days
in 1976 during the American Bicentennial observance, and was
placed on the Register on July 8, 1980.

The third Ringgold site is an imposing residence, Whitehall,
located on Mill Road near the Ringgold Mill, off Highway 41 A
in north central Montgomery County. The house was built by
Fielding L. Williams, a widower who remarried shortly after

MONTGOMERY 99

coming to Tennessee from Virginia. In 1839 he began construc-
tion on Whitehall, which served as a base for his agricultural and
industrial enterprises. He also owned and operated the early
grist and flour mill on nearby Little West Fork Creek. Following
his death in the late 1840s, his widow and her sister, Miss Mollie
Ward, conducted a girls' school in the building. Students within
driving distance attended daily classes and other students lived
at the school in dormitory space on the second floor during the
years prior to and following the Civil War.

The home is an unusual mixture of the architectural styles
of eastern Virginia and the popular Greek Revival style of an-
tebellum Tennessee. It retains the beauty, charm, and integrity
of this concept today. The large two-story frame and clapboard
house, built on a coursed rubble stone foundation, is designed
on a square floor plan with four tall brick interior chimneys rem-
iniscent of the Georgian Colonial style. Greek Revival influence
is seen in the columned gallery and entrance treatment. The six
two-story Doric columns attract immediate attention to the main
entrance, a double-leaf, paneled door with head and side lights.
The original gallery had a wooden floor which has been replaced
with concrete.

The interior floor plan includes the 22 by 30 foot central hall
with a two-run staircase. There are two rooms, each containing
a fireplace, on either side of the hall on each floor. Narrow stairs
lead through the attic giving access to the roof with a "widow's
walk," an unusual feature in a rural home.

Additional buildings on the grounds include a one-and-a-
half story rectangular building which originally served as a com-
bination kitchen, wash house, and servants quarters. An original
log corncrib is near the kitchen. The early smokehouse and an
icehouse are part of the cluster of buildings remaining on this
farmplace, which was placed on the National Register on Jan-
uary 31, 1978.

Allen House

Currently called Allendale, this house is located on Allen-
Griffey Road in north central Montgomery County. The area is

1 00 Tennessee County History Series

reached by Peachers'Mill Road. The two-story, rectangular resi-
dence was built in 1858 in the popular Tennessee Federal style.
It rests upon a brick foundation with 17-inch thick walls. Brick
work on the elevations is common, or American, bond. Stone
lintels and sills provide further strength to the structure. Brick
chimneys are found in the end walls. A simple portico with hip
roof, square columns, and pilasters projects from the center bay
at the entrance. Head and sidelights flank the front door. Con-
struction details reveal the techniques used when the residence
was built. Unique features include the placement of rafters at
the roof line.

The interior retains the original floor plan, with 16 by 16 foot
rooms flanking the central hall. A single-run staircase provides
access to the second floor, which duplicates the lower level.

A log house, built about 1800 by Abraham Allen, is attached
to the brick house of 1858. Built of poplar logs, the two-story
dwelling had a single room on each floor. The two levels were
connected by a narrow, steep, quarter-turn staircase with wind-
ers. A massive stone chimney was attached at the east wall.

A one-and-a-half story log house of the same date originally
stood about a half-mile away on the Allen farm. This has been
moved to a site nearer the main house. This log house originally
had two stone chimneys but currently there is only one and it is
of contemporary construction. This building has been reno-
vated for modern use.

Construction materials, details, and designs of the three
buildings on the Allen property contribute to the significance of
this homestead, which has been in the Allen family these many
years. It was placed on the National Register on October 3, 1978.

Cloverlands

Added to the Register on January 8, 1979, Cloverlands is
located in northern Montgomery County approximately a thou-
sand feet from the Kentucky line on the west side of the Clarks-
ville to Trenton, Kentucky, road. This vernacular plantation
house was built circa 1828 by John Walton Barker, a Virginian
who emigrated to this area at an earlier date.

MONTGOMERY 101

The original house was a story-and-a-half brick structure
with a brick foundation. The gable roof was covered with
wooden shingles. Interior brick chimneys bisected the ridge of
each of the two gables. This section consisted of two rooms sep-
arated by a central passage containing a stairway leading to the
upper story. The principal rooms in the early section retain their
original Federal mantels as well as some painted and grained
baseboards and chair-rails. Original grained woodwork like this
is found in few houses in the area.

Approximately twenty years after the initial construction,
the house was enlarged by the addition of one-story brick wings
on the gable ends of the original structure. Porches with four
square wooden pillars connected the wings. The additions con-
tained four brick chimneys, one for each of the principal rooms.
These additions transformed the structure from a story-and-a-
half vernacular form, commonly found in eighteenth century
eastern Virginia, to an H-shaped form generally found in the
Deep South. The recessed porches caused the overall plan to
appear rectangular. The facade and early part of the north ele-
vation were laid in Flemish bond and the remaining elevations
in American common bond. This makes an interesting combi-
nation indicating the prevailing styles of the different periods.

This house is one of the oldest in Montgomery County and
is the only known example of this style of architecture in north
central Tennessee.

Wilson House

The Sanford Wilson House, a two-story Federal-style brick
building, is located in the tiny village of Fredonia in southeastern
Montgomery County near the Ashland City Highway. Sanford
Wilson was the owner of a large acreage extending toward the
Cumberland River, three miles to the west.

The house, which has 1 6-inch-thick walls, was built on a brick
foundation and has a crawl space rather than a cellar. The main
elevation, facing west, is laid in Flemish bond, while the north
and south elevations are laid in common bond and have no
apertures. The former has an external chimney and the latter

102 Tennessee County History Series

has an internal chimney, a variation seldom found. The main
entrance with its headlight, sidelights, panels, and the windowed
panel door is centered in the west elevation. The boxed cornice
at the roof line has built-in gutters. Brackets, single and in pairs,
are spaced at appropriate intervals. A two-story ell extends from
the southern end of the east wall. In later years a porch, attached
to the north side of the ell, was enclosed, thereby providing an
additional room. Construction techniques include the absence
of a ridge pole, the use of trunnels, and the presence of hewn
and hand-sawed poplar timbers.

The main section is one room deep with a wide central hall
flanked by 16-foot square rooms. An enclosed two-run, quarter-
turn staircase with winders is located in the southeast corner of
the center hall. A second stairway, in the southwest corner of the
ell, has a similar configuration.

Despite some cosmetic alterations over the years, the fabric
of the building is generally intact. The present owner is restoring
the building, which is the only residence of this style located be-
tween Clarksville and Nashville. It was included in the Register
on September 13, 1978.

Riverview

This one-story brick cottage overlooks the Cumberland
River from a high bluff on the Cumberland Heights Road out-
side the city of Clarksville. The small lawn at the entrance to
Riverview is reasonably level; however, the remainder of the
property is heavily wooded and falls steeply in all directions, pro-
viding an excellent view of the river. Apparently constructed in
the 1830s, the building has undergone no exterior, and few in-
terior changes. Through the years the house has been occupied
by interesting personalities, including authors Allen Tate and his
wife Carolyn Gordon. During the late 1930s the property was
called "Ben's Folly" after the owner Ben Tate, brother of Allen
Tate.

Included on the National Register on March 15, 1979, the
raised cottage style is suitable to building on an incline. It pro-
vides a full height basement entered from the rear, as well as an

MONTGOMERY 103

attic chamber consisting of one bedroom and a storage room.
Bricks on the facade are laid in Flemish bond, while elsewhere
the six-course American bond prevails. All exterior walls are
painted white. Four iron tie-rods connect the front and rear
walls. On the facade (west elevation) a small portico, supported
by paneled pillars, frames the entry doorway. On the east wall,
facing the river, pillars at basement level support the full-height
portico with a gallery on the first floor level.

Two interior brick chimneys bisect the ridges of the gabled
roof. Due to the low ceilings, the window sashes are not identical
in height, being nine panes over six. Most of the original wood-
work and the three mantels of Tennessee vernacular interpre-
tations of the late Federal design remain intact.

Emerald Hill

High above the Red and Cumberland rivers, Emerald Hill
sits amidst a grove of ancient trees in Clarksville. The spacious
lawn extends to North Second Street where an earlier driveway
provided access to the property. Originally, the simple farm
house of Thomas W. Frazer stood on the site. In 1847 the prop-
erty was conveyed to Mrs. Gustavus A. Henry. The house was
occupied thereafter by members of the Henry family for more
than a century. It was listed on the Register July 14, 1971.

The building is historically significant as having been the
residence of Gustavus A. Henry, a leading citizen and prominent
orator and political figure. He served in the Kentucky legislature
in 1831, 1832, and 1833. After moving to Tennessee in 1833, he
was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress in 1842, and was the
Whig nominee for governor in 1853 when he was defeated by
Andrew Johnson. His service to the Confederacy was significant.
In 1861 he was appointed by Governor Isham G. Harris as one
of the commissioners to enter Tennessee into the Southern Con-
federacy. He was elected the first Senator from Tennessee to the
Confederate Congress where his power as an orator made a
most inspiring impression in times of distress. He previously had
been given the title "The Eagle Orator" during his debates with
Andrew Johnson. Another residence, occupied for years on

1 04 Tennessee County History Series

North Second Street between Jefferson and Marion streets, was
called the Eagle's Nest. Henry returned to Emerald Hill prior to
his death in 1880.

The original brick two-story house was only one room in
depth and two in length. The cellar held two rooms, a kitchen
and a dining area. A family room and bedroom were on the main
floor and two bedrooms were in the upper story. A long porch
was built on both the front and the back. Years later, a Gothic
Revival style facade was added to the south end; however, this
was removed in 1909 when the structure was redesigned.

At this time a massive two-story brick Greek Revival style ad-
dition was placed at right angles to the original house. On a
porch which extended across the facade two pairs of fluted col-
umns with Corinthian capitals outlined the entry which was
marked by pilasters of a similar design. The windows flanking
the entry bay were topped with rough keystones and stone was
used elsewhere in a manner appropriate to the Greek Revival
style. The woodwork on the balcony above the entry is definitely
twentieth century, however.

Oak Top

Thomas W. Wisdoms residence was built in the 1850s in a
rural setting. Originally two miles from downtown Clarksville,
the location is now a part of the city. Situated amidst massive
century-old oak trees, Oak Top is on Madison Terrace to the left
of Madison Street. The building illustrates a merging of the
Greek Revival style with the earlier Federal and later Italianate
forms.

Thomas W. Wisdom served as deputy clerk of the Circuit
Court of the county and practiced law as a partner of James E.
Bailey, later a United States Senator. He was also a county judge
prior to the Federal occupation of the area in 1862. Following
Wisdom's death in 1865 the property was sold. In 1869 the resi-
dence and some additional acreage was bought by Sterling Beau-
mont, a wealthy tobacconist and president of the First National
Bank, whose family occupied the residence until 1890. After an

MONTGOMERY 105

interval of years, Oak Top was purchased by ancestors of the
current owners.

Placed on the National Register on August 8, 1 980, the Greek
Revival two-story, L-shaped building rests on a stone founda-
tion. The roof is pierced at the gables by interior chimneys, one
in each of the three rooms in the ell. Bricks in the facade are laid
in Flemish bond pattern and a horizontal stone band separates
the foundation from the brick walls of the facade. There are two
windows on each side of the central doorways on both levels. The
two-story, flat central portico has two full-length wooden Cor-
inthian columns which support a cornice with a bracketed frieze
extending the full length of the facade. The upper balcony is
trimmed with iron grillwork and on the lower porch wooden
balustrades join the columns to the facade wall. A break in the
wall and roof line in the west side denotes a decades-old addition
to the original structure.

The interior follows the floor plan of many pre-Civil War
homes. A central hall is flanked by a room on the east which has
cross ventilation from north to south. The room on the west
opens into the first room of the ell. Rooms in the ell open on a
gallery on the east, providing light and ventilation to rooms on
both levels. An original curving walnut stairway in the central
hall and several Greek Revival mantels attest to the builder s fine
choice of materials.

Archwood

The Italianate mansion of Samuel Rexinger, Clarksville mer-
chant and onetime postmaster, stands on the north side of Col-
lege Street opposite Seventh Street. Originally built in 1878,
Archwood is the only remaining Victorian residence on College
Street where faculty and students have lived since the first edu-
cational institution, the Rural Academy, opened in 1806. The
Rexinger house was purchased by the state of Tennessee in 1965
to serve as the residence of the president of Austin Peay State
University. Although the building suffered fire and water dam-
age in the late 1970s, it has been restored for use as University
offices. It was added to the Register on April 1 1 , 1977.

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Tennessee County History Series

Archwood

This fine, two-story residence was constructed upon a rus-
ticated, coursed limestone foundation topped with a cut-stone
water table. Semielliptical arched openings provided access and
light to the full basement. The brick in the main facade was laid
in stretcher bond pattern but elsewhere common bond is used.
The west elevation contains a two-story bay centered on the wall.
The middle window was omitted to facilitate the location of a
chimney. Other chimneys were placed within the building where
fireplaces were required.

The main entrance to the building is in the center section of
the south facade. Stone steps lead to an open area protected
from the weather, and to the left an archway provides access to
a single story porch with columns joined by Italianate arches.
Elongated windows reach from the floor nearly to the ceiling. A
single-leaf door affords entrance into the building. A unique,
etched glass window in the door depicts a wood nymph in a buc-
olic setting. Despite the thousands of times this door has been
opened and closed during more than a century, the glass re-

MONTGOMERY 107

mains intact. Although some of the ornamentation on the roof
lines and the balustrades has been removed, many details of the
Victorian Italianate style remain. Dormers, bull's eye windows,
finials, denticulated and bracketed cornices, and Roman arched
windows all attest to the attention to detail by the local builders,
G. B. Wilson and Company.

Several interior walls are the same thickness as the exterior
load-bearing walls. Ceilings on the main floor are 14 feet high
with those at the rear of a cross hall slightly lower. An elaborate
wooden mantel may be found in an upstairs bedroom. The mas-
sive, ornate walnut woodwork, brass hardware, handsome iron
and marble mantels are representative of Victorian architecture.

The Home Infirmary

This building stands on a hill at Current Street and Riverside
Drive overlooking the Cumberland River. The original structure
was a story-and-a-half seven-room Gothic Revival cottage with
an attached one-story ell. The original brick house had many
decorative details but most have been obscured over the years.

During the 48 years that the Clarksville Home Infirmary op-
erated, the building underwent many changes and additions.
These alterations created both infirmary and residential space.
Operating facilities, patient rooms, and a two-story screened gal-
lery and an outdoor pool for convalescents were included. By
1922 the building contained 30 rooms and three more were
added before the infirmary was closed in 1954 when Clarksville
Memorial Hospital began offering service to patients of all races.

The force behind the development of the Home Infirmary
was Robert Tecumseh Burt, born on November 25, 1873, in a
dirt-floored cabin in Attola County, Mississippi. His parents, for-
mer slaves, owned a small farm near Kosciusko where Burt at-
tended school while working with his parents in growing the
vitally needed cotton crop. He attended Jackson College in prep-
aration for a teaching career. After years of teaching he entered
Meharry Medical College in Nashville from which he graduated
with honors in 1897. His first medical practice was in Mc-
Minnville, Tennessee, but he relocated in Clarksville in 1902 and

108 Tennessee County History Series

purchased the Current Street property in 1904. On March 6,
1906, the Home Infirmary opened as the first and only hospital
in Clarksville. Previously the nearest hospital was in Nashville,
approximately 50 miles away.

Dr. Burt enjoyed a reputation as an outstanding surgeon,
having done postgraduate work in Boston, New York, and at the
Mayo Clinic. In addition to Dr. Burt, the staff included five doc-
tors and eight nurses, and the equipment was comparable to that
found in the largest Southern hospitals. Charges at the Home
Infirmary, however, were always inexpensive. Fees during most
of its history were between $15 and $125 per week for surgery
and hospitalization. Space was adequate for an extended period
of recuperation.

During his career, Dr. Burt served the black community in
north central Tennessee and nearby Kentucky, while abdominal
surgery patients from an even greater area sought his skills. Dr.
Burt treated obstetric patients from Fort Campbell before a hos-
pital was constructed there. As a community leader, Dr. Burt was
involved in a number of activities in the city, serving on several
boards and as chairman of civic affairs. Burt High School bears
his name as does Burt-Cobb Community Center. In 1947 Dr.
Burt fractured both hips in separate accidents and was confined
to a wheel chair until his death on August 16, 1955. He is buried
in Golden Hills Cemetery in Clarksville. His widow, Emma Wil-
liams Burt, died in 1981 and is buried by his side. The Home
Infirmary was added to the National Register on August 24,
1978.

Clarksville Architectural District

The city's central business district was placed on the National
Register on May 13, 1976, as the Clarksville Architectural Dis-
trict. This district encompasses two and a half square blocks be-
ginning at the northwest corner of the Public Square and
continuing on to Franklin Street and thence south on Second
Street to Commerce. More than 50 buildings of interest to the
Register are interspersed with those of little or no architectural
value.

MONTGOMERY 109

In the early 1800s the concentration of mercantile establish-
ments was along the river bank where shipping was active. Dur-
ing the 1830s and 1840s the merchants built brick buildings
around the Public Square, where in 1 8 1 1 a brick courthouse had
been constructed. Among these was the Poston building of 1843
which anchors the district. The northwest section of the district
is predominantly mid-nineteenth century and contains some of
the city's earliest surviving structures. The remainder of the area
is dominated by mid and late nineteenth century Victorian com-
mercial structures, many of which were constructed following
the devastating fire of April 13, 1878.

The "great fire" threatened the town with total destruction.
Of undetermined origin, it broke out about 11:30 Saturday
night in the frame building behind Kincannon's Tin and
Queensware Store on Franklin Street between First and Second
streets. It devastated 15 acres of the business section before
being brought under control. The city's single fire engine broke
down early in the fight and Nashville was telegraphed for help
at 12:30 am. By 2:30 am a Stockwell Engine #4 with a thousand
feet of hose had left the capital on a special train with cleared
track to Clarksville. They arrived, with two reporters and fire
crews, long before dawn.

Damage was extensive. More than a hundred individuals and
firms listed damages amounting to $492,000, of which only
$165,000 was insured. The more important papers and records
in the Courthouse and Chancery office, however, were saved.
And when the vault of the Franklin Bank was opened Monday
morning, the contents were found undamaged.

All Saturday night, all day Sunday, and on Monday morning
Gracey Brothers had used their teams, drays, wagons, and dray-
men to convey exposed goods to places of safety. Both the L&N
Railroad and the Tom Ryman Steamboat Line offered to trans-
port building materials into Clarksville at half-price freight
rates. Local sawmills and planing mills accelerated production.
The brickyards of George Dick in South Clarksville and of John
Bradley and George Buck increased their output.

The City Hall has a 1 9 1 4 facade which is attached to an older

1 1 0 Tennessee County History Series

city building which housed the jail. The facade, with recessed
entrance and terra-cotta medallions, is an interesting Roman-
esque composition with arches over the entrance as well as above
the second story windows.

Near the intersection with Franklin Street there are three
brick buildings constructed upon stone foundations on a very
steep hillside. In 1976 the facades of two of these buildings were
redesigned to eliminate the chrome and glass of twentieth-cen-
tury renovations; however, the center structure retains its pre-
Civil War facade. The original design of a slightly recessed center
doorway with flanking windows has been modified by convert-
ing the entrance into a window and changing the nearby window
into a doorway. The arch above the original entrance is incised
in stone "Bank of America," a local banking institution which
failed in 1859.

On the south side of Franklin Street opposite the intersection
with the Public Square there are three brick structures similar
to the Poston Block. A fourth has burned. The entrance of one
unit retains the original Federal design, locally called the Phil-
adelphia influence as the merchants who traveled to Philadel-
phia in the 1840s were impressed by this style.

Next to these structures stands an 1880s Italianate Victorian
building. It has round arched window hoods, a bracketed corn-
ice, and a steep gable roof with one dormer. Originally there
were three dormers, as the upper story served as a photogra-
pher's and artists studio where the northern light was desirable.

The large warehouse next door has metal shutters on the
upper story windows. These were a safety feature to protect
against flying embers from wood shingle rooftops and to pre-
vent the rapid spread of fire. Cast iron pilasters and facade, as
well as Italianate window arches, mark the three adjoining build-
ings, although some modification has taken place over the years.

At the northeast corner of First and Franklin streets a three-
story pre— Civil War wholesale grocery stands. Rounded arch
window heads are featured in the exposed west wall extending
from Franklin Street to Legion Street. The structure is topped
by a massive parapet. Buildings to the east are replacements of

MONTGOMERY 111

earlier structures destroyed by the fire of April 13, 1878. The
two- and three-story brick buildings have a high parapet ex-
tending above the roof line, a feature the building code adopted
shortly after the devastating fire. Each building demonstrates
the Italianate treatment of window arches and all contribute to
the overall Victorian commercial atmosphere of the district. The
building of A. J. Clark, jewelers, has undergone a minimum of
alteration. The facade, the interior, and the natural color of the
brick remain unchanged. The window heads and cornices are
intact and the iron pilasters are in place. This building and the
adjacent structures are on the site of an 1842 courthouse which
was lost in the great fire.

Two buildings of the 1890s depart from the Victorian Ital-
ianate style which predominates in the district. At the southeast
corner of Second and Franklin streets a three-story structure of
three commercial units reflects the Richardsonian Romanesque
form in its brick, stone, and terra-cotta facade. Heavy stone
arches delineate the units. This is the largest single building in
the area. Likewise, another 1890 two-unit building at the corner
of Franklin and Third streets displays the Romanesque influ-
ence. This three-story building has an extensive parapet on the
front and street side. The facade is highlighted by ashlar accents
and bold, arched, dressed stone window heads at the third floor,
which spring from stone columns serving as mullions between
windows. Four delicate caryatids are placed at the juncture of
the dressed stone arches.

The Montgomery County courthouse of 1878-1879 is a
handsome example of the Second Empire skill in massing brick
and stone. A monumental framed clock tower, sculptured stone
figures, and a weather vane with eagle surmount the building.
The structure has been well preserved externally, though the
interior and roof were heavily damaged in a fire on March 12,
1900. Repairs were made immediately within the original walls.
The entire interior has been restored to the original appearance
with only certain adjustments for modern usage.

The Architectural District truly demonstrates styles from the

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Tennessee County History Series

Early 1 920s view of the Poston Block ( 1 842) and the Tobacco Exchange
(1879), the latter now razed.

1840s to the present. Gone are the early log buildings of the
pioneer days, yet the heritage of the community's commercial
life is revealed by these structures.

The Poston Block

This three-unit commercial building stands at the northeast
corner of the Public Square and Telegraph Street. Added to the
Register on June 13, 1972, the Federal style structure was built
in 1843 by John H. Poston. Shortly thereafter he deeded it to
his son Richard and daughter Adeline (Mrs. John F. Couts).

Constructed of red brick on a foundation of local limestone
blocks, the Poston Block has a full basement, two stories for com-
mercial purposes, and a full height attic limited in part by a gable
roof. The north gable has a stepped parapet. Painted on this
wall, in full view of travelers upon the Cumberland River, is an
announcement for John F. Couts and Son, Furniture and Un-
dertaking, Est. 1845. In the early days the cabinet or furniture
maker also made caskets. Three sizes, child, youth, and adult,

MONTGOMERY 113

were made and stored, awaiting the call for their immediate use
as there was no embalming at that date.

Framed double-hung windows with wooden lintels and sills
and slightly recessed doorways designate the three units. Five
chimneys can be observed, one at either end and three marking
the extension of the brick interior divider partitions. The three
units are connected by interior doors with each building con-
taining stairs to the second level and to the basement. The hand-
hewn joists are eleven by three inches in the center. Plaster on
interior walls has been removed recently exposing the brick in
some areas. Fireplaces have been restored with authentic man-
tels and the atmosphere of the past retained. The attic has re-
cently been converted into a townhouse apartment overlooking
the Cumberland River. An iron stair at the rear of the building
provides access to all units.

Post Office and Customs House

Located at the southwest corner of Commerce and Second
streets in the Architectural District, the 1898 United States Post
Office and Custom House was designed by William Martin Akin,
U.S. treasury architect. David A. Murphy, superintendent of
construction of U.S. buildings, moved to Clarksville to oversee
the construction of this unique building. The federal govern-
ment justified the expense of this building as Clarksville's postal
revenue was the fifth largest in the state. This was due mainly to
the tobacco industry which, at the time, made Clarksville the
world's largest tobacco market.

The building is a mixture of architectural designs including
the Queen Anne and Stick styles. Its highly pitched roof with
eagles at the corners, steep gabled windows, and elaborate terra-
cotta trim make it truly eclectic. The one-story building has attic
space on two levels leading to the hipped roof and contains a full
basement within the smooth stone foundation. The roof is slate-
covered with metal framing. There are five copper-covered dor-
mers on each side. The center gable dormer is flanked by
stepped hipped-roof dormers. Each dormer is topped by a pin-
nacle and a series of these pinnacles erupts from the upper angle

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Tennessee County History Series

Montgomery County Museum, Clarksville, formerly the U. S.
Post Office.

of the roof lines. Each corner is surmounted by a stylized copper
eagle on an extended bracketed pedestal. An ornate copper
tower rises above the apex of the roof.

Triple-sectioned windows on the side walls of the main level
are double-sashed under ornate arches. An identical ornate
transom rises above the entrance doorway on the east elevation.
Decorative terra-cotta appears around all openings and on the
corners. Flush with the sidewalk on the east are ornamental iron
railings which outline the steps leading from each side to a small
stoop outside the entrance doorway.

The interior reflects many elements of the original construc-
tion. The floor is of marble and the plastered walls feature ex-
tensive natural white oak trim. There are arched transoms above
doorways leading to offices.

The federal government conveyed title to the property to the
city of Clarksville in 1936. After that time, the Department of

MONTGOMERY 115

Electricity occupied the building for many years. Placed on the
National Register on June 13, 1972, the building became the
city-county museum in 1984, Clarksville's bicentennial year.

Clarksville Industrial District

This district is composed of five dissimilar units within an
irregular area bounded by Washington Street, Crossland Ave-
nue, the Illinois Central— Gulf Railroad, and the Cumberland
River. The structures include the Grange, a tobacco warehouse
damaged by fire since its inclusion on the Register; a portion of
the 1870s gas works; the Louisville & Nashville Railroad freight
depot; and two elevated railroad bridges. The Industrial District
stands witness to the industrial, transportation, and agricultural
enterprises which were so important to Clarksville's develop-
ment. Red brick is the predominant building material; however,
the railroad structures are composed of functional but dramatic
arrangements of timber, stone, and steel.

The 1870s gas house, a one-story brick building with a par-
apet and circular openings for the gas pipes, has been aban-
doned. Gas, manufactured from coke, was available in
Clarksville in 1859. Natural gas is now piped in from gas fields
elsewhere. The block-long Upper and Lower Grange, known at
one time as the worlds largest tobacco warehouse, extended
along the east side of Front Street, now called Riverside Drive.
This three-story brick building, constructed on a steep incline,
had portals on all three levels for handling tobacco shipments.
The Louisville & Nashville Railroad freight depot, an extensive
one-story brick building, is pierced with handsome, functional
brick arches which serve as loading portals. Nearby is the rail-
road switching yard.

Both of the railroad bridges in the district are significant for
their location and structure. The Louisville & Nashville Railroad
crosses the Cumberland River on a swing bridge approximately
678 feet long with a clearance of 50.8 feet above the water at
pool stage. Five masonry piers support the three steel truss spans
of the bridge. The center pier provides support for the mech-
anism that opens the draw span to allow river navigation when

116 Tennessee County History Series

the water level is at flood stage. Two detached piers, one up-
stream and one downstream from the bridge, serve to protect
the center pier from collision by unruly craft. The bridge was
originally constructed for the Memphis, Clarksville and Louis-
ville Railroad and was in use in 1860. After the Louisville &
Nashville acquired the property in the 1870s, alterations were
made in the steel work and masonry piers.

Running at right angles to the Louisville & Nashville tracks
and parallel to the river are tracks of the Illinois Central-Gulf,
formerly the Tennessee Central Railroad. The slope of the ter-
rain necessitated construction of an elaborate and intricate tres-
tle when the line was built in 1902. The trackage continues above
the main line of the Louisville 8c Nashville by means of a Pratt
truss bridge. Both structures reveal outstanding workmanship
laboriously employed prior to the advent of modern techniques.
Truly the Industrial District was worthy of inclusion in the Na-
tional Register on April 30, 1976.

Dog Hill Architectural District

This group of houses is bounded by Munford Avenue, and
portions of First, Union, Madison, and Second streets. Thirty-
nine buildings, two parking lots, and two vacant lots constitute
the related area. Only two buildings are used for commercial
purposes; all others are residences.

Dog Hill, one of the seven hills of Clarksville, is situated di-
rectly south of the commercial area of early Clarksville and east
of the Cumberland River. Due to its proximity to the business
section of the city, it developed as an early residential neighbor-
hood where doctors, merchants, bankers, and other business-
men constructed their homes within walking distance of their
offices. Most of the construction took place between 1870 and
1900 and took the form of one to two-and-a-half story cottages
in Victorian Gothic, Italianate, Eastlake, and Second Empire
styles. Despite this eclecticism, harmony was achieved by con-
structing the buildings close to the street and close to one an-
other with very small front yards and long, narrow back yards.
Architectural unity was achieved by constructing houses of com-

MONTGOMERY 117

parable height, scale, and materials, and through the use of a
uniform setback of the buildings. Older citizens recall that every
family had dogs which barked and howled in concert when dis-
turbed by train or boat whistles or by other disturbing sounds;
hence the name Dog Hill. The district was placed on the Na-
tional Register on May 9, 1980.

The commercial buildings, both originally built as resi-
dences, are of brick. One, originally constructed by Horace H.
Lurton, later associate justice of the United State Supreme
Court, is located at 212 South Second Street. This L-shaped,
two-and-a-half story Empire style brick building with mansard
roof has interesting window arrangements that differ on each
level. The other commercial site was built about 1850 at 212
Madison Street. This two-story, L-shaped brick building with a
flat facade has traditional elements of the style from that early
period.

The 34 buildings which continue as residences vary in de-
tails, but the majority are frame with individual elements that
are representative of construction from the early 1800s to 1912.
Three buildings, constructed in the 1940s and later, within the
district are of little historic worth. A particularly interesting
home at 202 Madison Street is a composite of an interior log
house of 1820, a brick section built about 1840, and brick wings
topped with frame second-story units of the early 1900s.

Churches

Six architecturally significant nineteenth century churches
comprise a thematic group on the Register. Only one, the 1831
Methodist Church on Main Street remains from the early period
and it no longer serves as a house of worship but rather as an
apartment house. This building, a square brick structure on a
brick foundation, demonstrates the details of that era. There is
a full basement, and interior remodeling during the years has
created a second story floor plan within the original walls. Iron
ties bind the east and west walls, flat wooden lintels top the win-
dow elements, and a diamond-shaped attic vent is found in the

118 Tennessee County History Series

front gable. This is evidently the oldest remaining brick struc-
ture in Clarksville and was placed on the Register April 6, 1982.

The five other buildings in this group were erected between
1872 and 1889. Some designed by the architects John Andre-
wartha or C. G. Rosenplanter, these structures represent differ-
ent interpretations of the Victorian Gothic school of ecclesiastical
architecture. Tall spires, steep roofs, buttresses, broad gables,
pointed arches, and the use of contrasting materials are shared
by all, although in an individual manner. Space does not permit
comments on the construction or decorative elements of the in-
teriors. Fine Gothic detailing and outstanding decorative ele-
ments are varied in accord with the needs of the individual
liturgy. Extremely fine, ornate interior woodwork is found in all
five churches, while significant window arrangements distin-
guish each. Externally, the use of varying construction materials
and placement of the steeples mark the primary differences be-
tween these buildings.

The highly ornate First Presbyterian Church and Madison
Street Methodist Church are massive structures, each bearing
two steeples or bell-towers. Decoration is simplified in Trinity
Episcopal Church and Immaculate Conception (Catholic)
Church, and even simpler in St. Peter A.M.E. Church. Brown
tinted brick was used in the Presbyterian and Methodist
churches, dark red for St. Peter A.M.E., and grey rough-cut
stone for Trinity Episcopal. Now overlaid with sand colored
molded stone, Immaculate Conception Church was originally
built of brick.

Two asymmetrical steeples flank a medium pitched, broad
gabled facade on the ornate First Presbyterian Church. A large
rose window above the central entrance serves as the facades
focal point and similar smaller windows are repeated in the bases
of the spires. Stone is used as a contrast to the brown brick and
to highlight structural openings. Brick stepped buttresses on the
east and west elevations alternate with the "Y" tracery Gothic
windows. Unusual triangular dormers at the sanctuary roof,
though not of strictly Gothic precedent, add interest to the ex-

MONTGOMERY 119

terior and light to the interior. This church was the first of this
group placed on the Register on April 30, 1976.

The Madison Street Methodist Church features two impos-
ing steeples, measuring 145 and 120 feet respectively, on either
side of the broad gabled facade. The massive roof trusses are
iron boxed in by suitable wood framing. The dark brick is or-
namented by contrasting grey cut stone at the windows and en-
trance. A rose window is above the lower of two pointed arches
at the entrance. The ornate building, like the Presbyterian
Church, is on a steep hillside necessitating appropriate concern
for the massing of brick and stone within its walls. It was added
to the National Register on May 13, 1976.

Trinity Episcopal Church, constructed of grey rough-cut na-
tive limestone, features a large bell tower and tall steeple on the
righf corner. Typical of the Victorian Gothic style are the pointed
arched doors and windows and the stepped buttresses. The ex-
tensive use of stained glass windows, four of which are by Tif-
fany, adds additional charm and beauty to the exterior as well
as to the interior, which retains its original elements. Trinity
Church rectory, built by the congregation in the 1880s, illus-
trates residential architecture of that time. An ornamental iron
fence along the sidewalk extends the full length of the property.
Similar wrought iron fencing is observed on properties of the
Presbyterian and Methodist churches.

St. Peter African Methodist Episcopal Church was con-
structed in 1873 using materials, donated by the Methodist
Church whose congregation had purchased them for their pro-
jected structure on Madison Street. Growth of that congregation
indicated a need for a larger building, so the materials were
given to the A.M.E. Church.

The main structure is dark red brick while the doors and the
"Y" tracery of the Gothic windows are wooden and painted
white. The large sanctuary, having truss work similar to that in
the Madison Street Methodist Church, is accessible from a flight
of stairs ascending from the front entrance. The building is flush
with the sidewalk necessitating that arrangement. This building
is an excellent example of a simple interpretation of the Victo-

120

Tennessee County History Series

0

St. Peter A. M. E. Church, the
oldest black church in the city.

rian Gothic style. Both Trinity Episcopal and St. Peter A.M.E.
were added to the Register on April 6, 1982.

The last church added to this thematic group, on August 2,
1982, is the Immaculate Conception Church. It is on a smaller
scale than the other Gothic churches. It features a bell tower and
tall single spire at the central bay of its facade. In the early 1900s
a sand-colored cement veneer was used to cover the original
brick. Marked as rectangular stone, this veneer significantly
changed the church's appearance. The church rectory, built in
the eary 1900s, is of the same type of molded stone as the veneer
on the church. This building.is an example of a fashionable res-
idential building and complements the church structure.

The Twentieth Century-An Era of Diversity

The twentieth century, marked by wars and financial depres-
sion, has also been characterized by diversity in communication
and mechanical technology. Despite adversity, great changes oc-
curred in manufacturing techniques to meet arising needs.

MONTGOMERY 121

Montgomery County has profited from these changes and re-
sponded with a growth of population sufficient to meet the de-
mands of industrial expansion.

The fourth quarter of the century finds Montgomery
County no longer dependent upon an agricultural base, as it has
become an industrial center chosen by various corporations pre-
viously located elsewhere. Industries, seeking to build new
plants or to relocate existing manufactories, are attracted to the
county for a number of reasons. A labor force capable of adapt-
ing to technical training, electrical power supplied by the Ten-
nessee Valley Authority, and a moderate climate with
temperatures averaging 60.2° and precipitation of 48.92 inches
annually, are all factors that provide for year-round continuous
operation of plants. Industrial expansion within the county
knows no bounds. Manufacturing plants extend northward to
the Kentucky line and northeastward through the community
of St. Bethlehem where Exit 4 of Interstate 24 gives access to the
Industrial Park. Additional industrial facilities near the Inter-
state extend from St. Bethlehem southward into the county.

Lumber has always been important to the economic life of
the county. The pioneer in this area found native trees to satisfy
his needs. Cedar and poplar were used for log structures and
later the cabinetmaker used walnut and cherry in the production
of quality furniture. Gardens and farms required additional
clearing of timber. Nearby woodlots supplied fuel for all needs.
Throughout the iron ore bearing sections of the county vast
amounts of timber were cut for the making of charcoal.

Logs were floated or rafted to water-powered mills along
many small streams. Later, steam powered mills were moved
from place to place when stands of timber were to be cut. More
permanently located mills are now served by heavy logging
trucks transporting timber culled from woodlands. Recent re-
ports indicate that 30 percent of the 347,000 acres of forest land
in Montgomery County are commercial. Currently, farmers are
planting "tree farms" for future production.

Several planing mills supplied materials for buildings until
recent years. It is now more economical for local suppliers to

122 Tennessee County History Series

order prefinished materials from large establishments. Orgain
Lumber Company, established in 1918 to make and sell hogs-
head staves, has expanded its enterprise to become Orgain
Building Supply Company. Currently it has only limited pro-
duction in its local mills. The Southwest Forest Industries in
1980 began making corrugated shipping cartons and has ex-
panded that industry to include cartons and boxes for several
large customers.

Agriculture continues to be important to Montgomery
County's economy. In 1985 some 1231 farms were in operation
in the county, the average size being 154 acres.

Tobacco continues to be a major money crop with the federal
government providing a base price for all tobacco placed in the
"pool. "Acreage of dark-fired and burley tobaccos is regulated by
law7. Figures for 1984—1985 show that the county's farmers re-
ceived $4,689,775 for burley and $9,707,591 for the dark-fired
tobacco they produced. In addition to producing and exporting
tobacco, the county began manufacturing cigars and plug to-
bacco prior to 1848. Several brands of cigars were produced in
the area until recently. Snuff production was instituted prior to
1900 and the American Snuff Company traces its history to that
time. Now a division of the Conwood Corporation, American
Snuff produces smokeless tobacco and remains a symbol of the
area's tobacco history.

Tobacco, a once-a-year crop, was endangered from planting
time until sale time by weather, disease, and insect infestation.
Constantly fluctuating prices also contributed to the farmers'
problems. As the years went by overplanting depleted the fer-
tility of the soil. Peter Barker, a successful farmer, developed a
plan that allowed four seasonal incomes to be attained. C. W.
Bailey, president of the First National Bank, further promoted
this plan, which came to be known as the Four Pillars of Income.
Diversification of agriculture led to sales of lambs and wool in
spring, wheat and other grains in summer, beef cattle in the fall,
and tobacco in the winter. The planting of lespedeza and soy-
beans has restored fertility to depleted soils and ready markets
for these products have increased farm revenues.

Harvested acres

Total income

9,000

$2,000,000

12,000

$1,400,000

25,000

$6,500,000

900

$ 130,000

Head

Total income

18,000

$2,000,000

40,000

$5,300,000

900

$1,200,000

MONTGOMERY 123

Beef cattle account for a major portion of the county's agri-
cultural economy and sheep production is on the upturn as bet-
ter drugs become available to combat devastating diseases. New
forms of electrified fencing offer livestock protection from pre-
dators such as coyotes and dogs.

Approximate agricultural figures for the county for 1984 are
as follow:

Crop
Corn
Wheat
Soybeans
Grain Sorghum

Livestock
Swine
Beef Cattle
Dairy Cattle

No longer does the itinerant shoemaker travel throughout
the countryside with his supply of suitable materials and the iron
lasts upon which to shape the shoe sole.

Jessel Cohn, a shoemaker by trade, moved from Chicago to
Clarksville in 1929 and began shoe production in a building for-
merly occupied by garment manufacturers. The Acme Shoe
Manufacturing Company produced "Jus Kids. "Potential sales of
cowboy boots led to the installation of more machines and the
employment of many workers for the necessary hand-stitching
of colorful designs. After incorporation of the Acme Boot Man-
ufacturing Company in Clarksville, the market further ex-
panded as multiple styles became available. Acme, "The Worlds
Largest Bootmaker," now has plants in three cities in Tennessee
and in two additional states which produce many varieties for
the current market, including jump boots for the military. Acme
Boot Company is a subsidiary of a nationwide industrial
organization.

Bootster Shoe Company began operation in 1948 producing
plastic uppers to be worn with one's shoes. These provided pro-
tection in inclement weather and a variety of color choice eagerly

124 Tennessee County History Series

desired by children. Expansion of styles and materials led to pro-
duction of shoes for all ages and local sales outlets were oper-
ated. Thousands of pairs of shoes were shipped nationwide.
Foreign competition and differentials of cost and sales led to the
closing of the business in 1984.

The Clarksville facility of B. F. Goodrich, makers of heels,
soles, and rubber footwear, was established in 1939. The local
plant reach peak production during World War II, filling Army
orders for more than 3,500,000 heels and soles monthly. At one
point the factory, its labor force greatly enlarged, assembled
10,000 gas masks daily. Vulcan Corporation in 1972 purchased
the B. F. Goodrich plant. Vulcan supplies rubber shoe products
to many major shoemakers in America and other nations.

Early garments were fabricated from textiles manufactured
at Peacher's Mills. This preceded the manufacture of several va-
rieties of clothing in Clarksville. The survivors of that once ex-
tensive industry are Mason and Hughes, established in 1919,
and the Jay Garment Company, founded in 1927. Both com-
panies produce work clothing.

Beginning in 1912 the Clark Button Factory cut discs from
Cumberland River mussel shells. Holes were then pierced in the
button discs before shipment to Memphis for further polishing
preparatory to sale as "pearl" buttons.

The printing industry in the county had its beginning in
1808 when Clarksville's first newspapers were published. The
years have seen numerous newspapers come and go, but todays
Leaf-Chronicle is proud of its heritage, which can be traced to the
first paper of 1808. Hand-set type has been replaced by com-
puterization and excellent color reproduction. The Leaf-Chron-
icle made production history in 1962 when it became the first
newspaper in the southeast to use offset presses. Now owned by
Multimedia, Inc., a broadcast and entertainment production
group, Leaf-Chronicle stock is traded over the counter.

Several other printing concerns are located in Clarksville.
Poser Business Forms, a division of Safeguard Industries, began
operation in 1973 as one of several outlets of this interstate in-
dustry. American Yearbook Company produces yearbooks and

MONTGOMERY 125

other commercial printing. The facilities of the plant have
greatly expanded since its 1971 beginnings and customers find
advice readily available concerning all aspects of their printing
jobs. A division of Josten, this plant employs several hundred
people. In the 1960s William Christoph founded Christophs
Printing Company. Current production has far outgrown orig-
inal expectations. Printing and binding of books is a recently in-
stituted service in addition to the production of promotional
items.

The Ledbetter Screen Printing Company, incorporated in
1956, uses the silk screen process. This innovation made possible
the printing of small type, drawings, and photographs on var-
ious materials such as metal, glass, wood, and heavy cardboard.
From throughout the nation orders reach Clarksville as thou-
sands of customers make use of Ledbetter s decals and advertis-
ing items.

European technology and an American market led to the
founding of International Label Company in Clarksville in
1980. Colorful and unusual metalized paper materials and labels
are produced for many nationally known industries.

Book binding, a pre-Civil War enterprise, is no longer par-
ticularly active in Clarksville. Both soft and hard-bound books,
however, were once locally produced. Fine examples include The
Young Colonel by R. W Thomas in 1860, and a number of early
works by W P. Titus, including Picturesque Clarksville, Past and
Present, produced in 1887.

Iron ore is no longer mined in Montgomery County. Crum-
bling stone stacks mark sites where thousands of tons of pig iron
were once produced annually. This industry was a casualty of
the Civil War, as an adequate labor supply was no longer avail-
able. Competition with furnaces in Birmingham, Alabama,
where coal beds lay in proximity to the ore, was also a contrib-
uting factor in the gradual decline of the industry.

The industry was retained to a degree with the construction
of the 3 1 -mile "Mineral Line." Rail service was available from the
Louisville 8c Nashville railroad at Hematite into Dickson County
and from the Nashville, Chattanooga 8c St. Louis railroad at

126 Tennessee County History Series

Pond. Shipment of ore was possible in two directions from 1893
until the line was discontinued in 1936.

The Gracey-Woodward Furnace, established in Clarksville in
1891, produced 200 tons daily. This furnace combined ore from
the "Mineral Line" with coke and local limestone. Ownership of
the furnace changed and the Red River Iron Company blast fur-
nace and foundry was in operation in later years until this in-
dustry was no longer economical. The current successor to the
Red River Iron Company is the Clarksville Foundry 8c Machine
Works, established in 1922. The company produces many types
of aluminum and iron castings for customers throughout the
nation.

Welding and machine shops occupy the site of an 1854
foundry which transferred pig iron into cast iron. Items of great
diversity continue to be produced there, many being special one-
of-a-kind orders. No longer are plows produced by Meriwether-
Patch nor the Black Hawk corn sheller by A. H. Patch. Louis E.
Gaisser designed many varieties of ornamental iron at the turn
of the century. A newer company, 41 -A Products, established in
1961, currently creates special orders of ornamental iron as well
as producing standard products.

Jersey Miniere Zinc Corporation established an electrolytic
zinc refinery in Montgomery County in 1978. Zinc ore concen-
trate is delivered to the refinery by barge on the Cumberland
River and by rail and trucks from mines in Tennessee, Ireland,
Mexico, Canada, and elsewhere. From this concentrate pure
zinc and useful by-products are derived. The refinery, capable
of producing 90,000 tons of slab zinc annually, receives power
from the nearby TVA plant. The 55-pound slabs and one-ton
blocks of zinc are shipped by rail and truck to customers for use
in galvanizing steel products for rust protection. The sulphuric
acid output, approximately 140,000 tons annually, is marketed
for producing fertilizer and other items.

Several other manufacturing companies have located in
Montgomery County in the last 30 years. In 1952 Smithfield In-
dustries, leaders in tool and die making, began operation in the
area. This company specializes in the production of screw ma-

MONTGOMERY 127

chine products and precision machine parts. Union Carbide
Electrode System Division, established in 1975, creates graphite
electrodes used in electric furnaces for making iron, steel, and
ferroalloys. Trane Company is internationally known for the in-
novative concept of self-contained systems of residential and
commercial heating and cooling units. Such units are assembled
by the manufacturer and delivered to customers as a compact
unit. The original Trane facility of 1959 has expanded during
recent years to meet manufacturing and warehousing needs.

Local builders at one time produced spring wagons, heavy
drays, farm wagons, buggies, and carriages requiring various
materials and production skills. Fabrics, leather, metal, and
wood were component parts. The Union Bending Works, estab-
lished in 1890, supplied felloes, spokes, and neck yokes, as well
as wiffletrees, until such vehicles were no longer manufactured
in this area.

In 1979 Thun began production of pedal axles, bicycle
cranks, and other bicycle parts which are used by five of the lead-
ing bicycle manufacturers in the nation. More recently, produc-
tion includes automobile steering mechanisms for a subsidiary
of General Motors. The plant is essentially a cold forge, molding
wire and flat steel without the use of heat. Cold-forge welding
is economical in producing an extremely strong product.

Ingram Industries has a fleet of five boats. Capable of push-
ing barges, Ingram transports goods for other companies in ad-
dition to shipping river gravel and sand to their own customers.
Ingram Industries is a subsidiary of Ingram Barge Company,
one of the nation's largest barge operators. In 1984 more than
100,000 tons of materials were transported on the Cumberland
River.

In addition to river and air transportation, seven motor
freight companies are located in Clarksville. Mileage of roads is
as follows: Interstate 24, 17.2 miles; county roads, 127.41 miles;
city streets, 366.58 miles. There are also many miles of roads in
the Fort Campbell installation.

The county maintains a relatively stable economy at this time
consistent with an expanding industrial base. In addition to busi-

128 Tennessee County History Series

nesses already mentioned the county produces a variety of prod-
ucts, including TV/radio test equipment, wire harness
assemblies for the automotive industry, quarry and crushed
stone, stainless steel cookware, and appliance components.

The citizens and community officials welcome the recent ad-
ditions to the areas industrial base. Montgomery County's future
as an important transport, agricultural, industrial, retail, and
professional center is assured.

Leisure has become serious business in the last quarter of this
century. Recreation at the turn of the century required little spe-
cial equipment as time was spent gathering wild flowers in mead-
ows, swimming in Red River, tramping through woodlands in
search of nut-bearing trees, or sledding down long hills and skat-
ing on numerous frozen ponds.

Gymnastic skills were demonstrated at the YMCA and later
athletic competition at Southwestern Presbyterian University at-
tracted participants in baseball, football, and basketball. The
new high school of 1907 boasted a gymnasium and an indoor
swimming pool. Early baseball grounds where professional
teams of the Kitty League, with teams from Kentucky, Illinois,
Indiana, and Tennessee, played, are no longer recognizable.

Today the Clarksville Parks and Recreational Services De-
partment operates with a budget of more than $1,000,000.
There are 32 area parks and recreational facilities including sim-
ple parks with playgrounds, golf courses, swimming pools, boat
ramps, and stadiums. The Swan Lake Sports Complex provides
facilities for a variety of activities. Sheltered community centers
are strategically located to seve three areas of the city. Burt-Cobb
Community Center honors Dr. Robert T. Burt, surgeon, and
Professor Bailey Cobb, educator, prominent black citizens. For-
mer mayors, William Kleeman and Charles Crow, are recog-
nized in the Kleeman Center and the Crow Center.

One of two state-operated recreational facilities in the county
is the Dunbar Cave Natural Area, situated on 1 10 scenic acres.
At the turn of the century Idaho Springs was a mineral springs
resort. In the 1930s Dunbar Cave became associated with big
name bands and later with country music while owned by Roy

Dunbar's Cave dance floor during the era of visiting "Big Bands" in the
1930s.

Acuff. A stately old bathhouse serves as a visitor's center and mu-
seum at Dunbar Cave. Guided tours are arranged of the famous
"blowing" cave, whose entrance prehistoric Indians inhabited
10,000 years ago.

The Port Royal Covered Bridge State Historic Area features
trails, picnic grounds, and water activities on Red River. Port
Royal, once a thriving river town, was a stopping point for steam-
boats. The state is in the process of restoring the old Masonic
Lodge and future plans call for additional preservation projects.
The centerpiece of the park is a reproduction of the Port Royal
covered bridge which originally spanned the Red River in 1904.

The Clarksville-Montgomery County Historical Museum, lo-
cated in the U.S. Post Office constructed in 1898, opened to the
public in June of 1984. Historical exhibits have attracted more
than 10,000 visitors within twelve months.

A variety of interesting events are held throughout the year.
The state of Tennessee's Old-Time Fiddlers' Championships eel-

130 Tennessee County History Series

ebrates southern folk music in April. Championships are staged
in 13 categories and a festival atmosphere prevails. The Mont-
gomery County Fair, sponsored by the area Jaycees, is held at
the end of the summer at the Clarksville Fairgrounds Park.
Oktoberfest provides authentic German food, beverage, music,
and dancing. Sponsored by the Edelweiss Club, this rapidly
growing three-day event delights citizens of all ages.

Austin Peay State University also provides a variety of rec-
reational events. The Speech and Theater Department pro-
duces five shows annually, while the Music Department sponsors
many activities open to the public. University organizations also
sponsor a madrigal feast and a jazz festival that are open to the
public.

Today Clarksville, county seat of Montgomery County, is
Tennessee's fifth largest municipality and one of the fastest grow-
ing cities in the South. Located 250 miles from the population
center of the nation, it offers advantages in the marketing of
products produced by its many industries. The city also ranks
fifth among cities in Tennessee in postal revenue, due to the in-
dustrial growth and diversification in recent decades.

The city of 59 square miles is governed by an elected mayor
and city council of 13 aldermen. Over 80 civic clubs and organ-
izations are active within the city. In 1984 Clarksville reached a
milestone in its long history by celebrating the bicentennial of its
founding.

History is a record of man's presence within a period of time
and within an environment which is the product of God's pres-
ence in nature. Man weaves his skills and culture upon the warp
of that natural background. His ethical and physical values be-
come the tapestry for all who would view the past with its im-
perfections and its achievements. We, of any generation, are the
product of all that has gone before; may we be ever aware of this
hard-won heritage.

MONTGOMERY 131

Suggested Readings

Alley, Ann E. and Beach, Ursula S. 1850 Federal Census of Montgomery
County, Tennessee. Clarksville, 1971.

Architecture in Middle Tennessee. Thomas B. Brumbaugh et ai, ed. Nash-
ville, 1974.

Beach, Ursula Smith. Along the Warioto, or A History of Montgomery
Comity, Tennessee. Nashville, 1964, 1965, 1977.

Beach, Ursula S. and Alley, Ann E. 1 798 Property Tax List and 1820 Fed-
eral Census of Montgomery County. Clarksville, 1969.

Biographical Directory: Montgomery County Members of the Tennessee General
Assembly, 1796-1969. Nashville.

Douglas, Byrd. Steamboatin on the Cumberland. Nashville, 1961.

Garland, Paul E., The History of Early Tennessee Banks and Their Issues.
Hampton, VA, 1983.

Halliburton, John Howard, Jr., Clarksville Architecture. Nashville, 1977.

Historic Clarksville, the Bicentennial Story, 1784-1984. Charles M. Waters
et ai, ed. Clarksville, 1983.

Hyatt, Lewis Paul. "The Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle, 1808-1956; A His-
tory." Diss., George Peabody College, 1957.

Johnson, Leland R., Engineers on the Twin Rivers: A History of the Nashville
Corps of Engineers, United States Army. Nashville, 1978.

"Montgomery County," in History of Tennessee. Winston A. Goodspeed
etai, ed. Nashville, 1886.

Moser, Capt. John G. A History of Fort Campbell, 1941-1952.

Nail, James O. The Tobacco Night Riders of Kentucky and Tennessee. Louis-
ville, 1938.

Patrick, James. Architecture in Tennessee, 1768-1897. Knoxville, 1981.

Putnam, A. W History of Middle Tennessee. 1859. Rpt. Knoxville, 1971.

Ross, James. Life and Times of Elder Reuben Ross. 1882. Rpt. Nashville, 1977.

Rudolph, Wilma. Wilma. New York, 1977.

Scott, Evelyn. Background in Tennessee. New York, 1937.

Smith, Ursula Lee. "A Literary History of Montgomery County, Ten-
nessee." Thesis, Austin Peay State College, 1954.

Sulzer, Elmer G. Ghost Railroads of Tennessee. Indianapolis, 1975.

The First 50 Years of Austin Peay State University. Charles M. Waters, ed.
Clarksville, 1977.

Titus, W. P. Picturesque Clarksville, Past and Present. 1887. Rpt. Nashville,
1973.

Index

Illustrations are indicated by an asterisk following the page number.

Acme Book Mfg. Co., 123
Adams. James, 8
Agriculture, 14, 122-123.

See also Tobacco.
Allen, Abraham, 100
Allen House, 99-100
Alston, Philip, 24
American Yearbook Co., 124-125
Ammunition, 17
Arch wood, 105-107, 106*
Armstrong, Martin, 8, 18
Austin Peay State University,

67, 68-70, 130

Bailev, Charles, 72
Bailey, C. W., 122
Bailey, James E., 31
Baker, John, 20
Banks, 36-37
Baptists, 78, 79-80; black,

83

100

62

35

Barker, John W., 35,

Barker, Peter, 122

Barksdale, W. W. Jr.

Battle, Isaac, 20

Bayless, Joseph, 46

Beach, Bettye, 92

Beaumont, Henry F.

Bell, Hugh, 87

Bell, Robert W., 60

Bird, Amos, 11-12

Blacks, 83-84, 88, 89, 92-94, 107-108

Blount, Willie, 31,40,46

Bootster Shoe Co., 123-124

Border War (1916), 54-55

Boren, Brazel, 24

Boyd, John, 8

Bradford, Theoderick E, 60

Bradley, John, 109

Brickhouse, Jack, 92

Bridges and ferries, 40, 41*,

42, 115-116
Briscoe, George, 8

Briscoe, William, 8

Brooks, Claire, 75—76

Browder & McClure, 35

Brown, Morgan, 20, 21, 73

Bruce, S. D., 50

Buck, George, 109

Burt, Robert T., 89, 107-108

Campbell, William B., 47*

Carney, Richard, 55

Castner, W.J.,37

Catlett, John A., 55

Cemeteries, 87-88

Childers, Gracey, 54

Christian Church, 82

Christoph, William, 125

Churches, historic, 117-120

City Hall, 109-110

Civil War, 30, 42, 47-53

Clark, A. J., Ill

Clark, Morris, 55

Clark Button Factory, 124

Clarksville, 8-9, 12, 18, 19, 23, 24, 29, 32,
33, 34*, 42, 43, 49, 50, 51, 52-53, 54,
60, 72, 78, 130; Architectural
District, 108-112; businesses, 60; city
government, 27; first laws, 27—28;
Industrial District, 1 15-1 16; Parks and
Recreational Services, 128

Clarksville Female Academy, 50, 65,
66*, 74

Clarksville Foundry and
Machine Works, 126

Clarksville Memorial Hospital, 76

Clarksville-Montgomery County
Historical Museum, 129

Climate, 121

Cloverlands, 100-101

Coal Creek miners revolt, 53

Cohn.Jessel, 123

Cole, Peter, 60, 72

Collins, William B., 35

132

MONTGOMERY

133

Commerce on the River, 32-38
Commodities, value of, 14
Community Service, 84—88
Confederate Monument, 86-87
Connell, William, 20
Cook, George, 88
County courts, 26
Courthouse, 24-25*, 49, 78, 1 1 1
Craig, Francis, 89
Cross, Russell, 92
Cullom, Jeremiah W., 78
Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 82
Crutcher, Anthony, 11-12
Crutcher, George, 59, 60
Curtis, Martha, 8

Davis, James, 8

Dentistry, 73-74

Dick, George, 109

Dickson, Hezekiah, 20

"Dix, Dorothv," 90

Doctors, 60, 72-73

Dog Hill Architectural District, 1 16-117

Dority, Brian, 89

Diane, Walter H., 35

Drugstores, 74

Dunbar, Ann, 15

Dunbar Cave Natural Area, 128-129*

Early Settlers: Clarksville, 8, 60;

Palmyra, 20; Port Royal, 20
Education, 14-15,64-71
Elder,JamesE.,27,61,87
Emerald Hill, 103-104
Episcopalians, 80—81

Federal occupation, 50—53

Fee, Mr. & Mrs. Frank, 75

Fire of 1878, 109

First Presbyterian Church, 118-119

Fitzgerald, John, 61

Foote, Andrew H., 51

Fort Campbell, 45, 56-59, 70

Fort Defiance, 50, 96

4 1-A Products, 126

Foster, Anthony, 60

Franklin House, 57*

Furnaces, early, 21-22

Ford, James, 16

Gaisser, Louis E., 126
Geography, 1-2
Gerhart, Nathaniel, 55
Glen Ellen, 43
Goodrich, B. E, 124

Gordon, Carolyn, 90, 102

Gracey Bros., 109

Gracey- Woodward Furnace, 126

Grant, J. A., 61

Grimes, William, 24

Hardin, Benjamin, 24

Harriet Cohn Mental Health Center, 77

Haskins, Nannie, 52

Hayes, Roland, 89

Health care, 13, 15, 74-76, 107-108

Hematite, 43

Henry, Gustavus A., 30, 48, 103-104

Higher education, 67-70

Home Infirmary, 75*, 107-108

House, John E, 30, 31*

Hospitals, 74-76, 75*

Huling, James, 87

Humphreys, Parry W, 30, 60

Hutchins, Thomas, 6

Immaculate Conception Church, 120
Indians, 2-5, 6, 7, 9-12, 13
Industry, 121-122, 123-128
Ingram, Martin V., 91
Ingram Industries, 127
Insurance companies, 37
International Label Co., 125
Iron: mining, 16-17, 21-22, 23, 125; ore,
1, 16; products, 32

Jackson, Andrew, 24, 33, 46
Jay Garment Co., 124
Jersey Miniere Zinc Corp., 126
Johnson, Allen, 65
Johnson, Andrew, 51
Johnson, A. R., 52
Johnson, Cave, 30, 47-48
Johnson, Irene, 76
Jones, Theodore E., 37
Jones, William, 35

Kellebrew, Mary Jane R., 65
Kendall, William, 59
Kennedy, D. N., 37
Kesee, John, 35
Kimble, Herbert S., 26
King, William, 60
Kittrell, Samuel A., 72

Land grants, 7-8
Lafayette, General, 33
Lawyers, early, 29-30, 60
Leaf-Chronicle, 62, 124
Ledbetter Screen Printing Co., 125

134

Tennessee County History Series

Legal Affairs. 27-29

Leigh. William R., 35

Life in the Cumberlands, 12—17

Linwood Landing, 6

Lisenbee, Horace, 94

Lowe, W. W., 53

Lumber, 121-122

Lurton, Horace H., 30, 117

Lust, Ferdinand, 89

McClure, Phoebe, 8

McFerrin.JohnB., 79

McKeage, John, 35

McKeen, T. H., 61

McLean, C. D., 61

Madison Street Methodist Church,

118, 119
Manufacturing, clothing, 23, 124
Martin, Joseph, 24
Mason, Rodney, 52
Mason 8c Hughes, 124
Masonic Building collapse, 63*
Medicine, 71—77
Methodists, 78, 79; black, 83
Mexican War, 46-47
Miles, Richard, 20
Military history, 45—59
Militia, 53

Miller, Harriet Parks, 91
Mineral Line, 43, 125-126
Mitcherson, William, 20
Montgomery, John, 8, 17-19, 24
Montgomery County: formation of, 17;

government of, 23-27; records, 24
Montgomery County Fair, 130
Musicians, 89

National Guard, 54—55
NeblettJ. S.,61
Neblett, Robert E., 72
Neville, George, 24
Neville, Joseph B., 24
New Providence, 20-21
Newman, Robert Loftin, 66, 92
Newspapers, 59-64, 124

Oak Top, 104-105
Officials, first county, 24
Old Post House, 97
Old-Time Fiddlers' Championships,
129-130

Palmyra, 19-20,23,33
Patch, A. H., 126
Peacher's Mill, 23, 43

Peay, Austin, 32, 69*

Peebles, Burrell, 61

Pennington, Jacob, 24

Phillips, John, 24

Pillow, Gideon, 47

Pitt, Mrs. S. E. W, 89

Poindexter 8c Pollard, 36

Pollock, Barkley W, 24

Poser Business Forms, 124

Port Royal, 20, 23, 24

Port Royal Covered Bridge State

Historic Area, 129
Post Office and Customs House,

113-115, 114*, 129
Post offices (1834), 21
Poston,John H., 60, 88, 112
Poston Block, 1 12*— 1 13
Pehistoric cultures, 2—5
Presbyterians, 80; black, 83
Prince, Francis, 20, 24
Prince, Robert, 20
Printing and binding, 124—125.

See also Newspapers.
Prominent citizens, 29-32
Proudfit,John, 35
Public Schools, 67, 70-71

Railroads, 40-45, 125-126
Red Rock, 6
Reilly, Owen, 60
Religion, 15, 77-84
Renfroe, Moses, 7
Representatives, U.S., 30-31
Rexinger, Samuel, 105
Richardson, Francis, 59
Ringgold Mill, 97-98*
Riverview, 102-103
Riverview Cemetery, 12, 87-88
Rives, Hallie Ermine, 90
Roads, 16,38-40, 121, 127
Roberts, John, 35
Robertson, James, 16
Robinson, H., 72
Roman Catholics, 81
Ross, Reuben, 78, 79-80
Rudolph, Mason, 94
Rudolph, Wilma, 92-94, 93*
Rural mail carriers, 22*
Ryan, Fr. Abram, 89-90
Ryman Steamboat Line, 109

St. Bethlehem, 43

St. Peter A.M. E. Church, 119-120*

Sanders, John, 15

MONTGOMERY

135

Scott, Evelyn, 90

Sevier, Rebecca, scalping of, 1 1

Sevier, Valentine, 87; and family,

9-12,20
Sevier Station, 95; attack on, 10-12
Shannon, Thomas S., 61
Sharp, Maxwell, 60, 72
Shipping in 1859,33-34
Shoemaking, 123-124
Sickenberger, L. F., 62
Simpson, George, 60
Slaughter, R. F., 60, 72
Smith, Beasley, 89
Smith, Craig G., 37
Smith, home of William Cosby, 96-97
Smithfield Industries, 126
Southwestern Presbyterian University, 68
Spanish-American War, 54
Sparta Academy, 60, 64
Stations (forts), 8
Steamboats, 32-33, 37, 38*
Stevenson, Jonathan, 20
Stewart Bros., 35
Stewart College, 49, 68, 74
Suder, J., 66

Tate, Allen, 90-91, 102

Tate, Ben, 102

Taxes, 29

Tennessee County, 8-9, 17

Thomas, Benjamin, 20

Thomas R. W, 90, 125

Thun, 127

Titsworth, Isaac, 20, 24

Titus, W. P., 125

Tobacco, 33, 34-36, 122; prices, 36

Tobacco Exchange, 1 12*

Tobacco Wars, 53-54

Trane Co., 127

Transportation, 16, 38-45

Trices Landing, 2 1

Trinity Episcopal Church, 1 19

Trolleys, 44*, 45*

Twentieth Century — An Era of Diversity,

120-130
Tyler, C. W, 90
Tyler, John D., 64-65

Union Bending Works, 127
Union Carbide Electrode System
Div., 127

Waterways, 16

War of 1812,46

Ward, Mollie, 99

Warren, Robert Penn, 91

Wells, HaydonE., 61,65

White, Clarence Cameron, 89

Whitehall, 98-99

Whitfield, Rosa, 89

Whitfield, Bates & Co., 49

Whittle, Arthur, 91

Wilcox, Samuel, 20

Williams, Fielding L., 35, 98-99

Williams, James, 60

Williams, Martha McCulloch, 90

Williams, Samuel S., 37

G. B. Wilson & Co., 107

Wilson, house of Sanford, 101-102

Wisdom, Thomas W, 26, 104

Woodward, T G., 52, 53

World War I, 55

World War II, 55-58

Writers, 89-91

About the Author

"♦

Ursula S. Beach, born in Clarksville in 1900, earned a B.A. at
Southwestern Presbyterian University in 1922 and an M.A. at
Austin Peay State College in 1954. She spent over 30 years teach-
ing in public schools and at APSU. Contributor and researcher
to numerous editors and writers, she is also an author, journalist,
and lecturer in her own right.

In 1978 Mrs. Beach received the State Award of Merit from
the Tennessee Historical Commission. In 1961-1965 she served
on the Tennessee Civil War Commission and later on the Ten-
nessee Governors Council for the bicentennial of the American
Revolution. Mrs. Beach served during celebrations of Clarks-
ville's Sesquicentennial (1934) and Bicentennial (1984) and re-
ceived many honors. In 1980 she was named State Woman of the
Year by the Tennessee Press and Authors Club.

At present, Mrs. Beach serves as Research Associate in the His-
tory Department at APSU and is an active member of the Board
of Trustees of the Clarksville-Montgomery County Historical
Museum. She is a member of several historical and archival as-
sociations and is active in many civic endeavors.